Liquid Snake

Liquid Snake (リキッド・スネーク) (commonly referred to as Liquid) is Solid Snake's twin brother and genetic duplicate, along with field commander of FOXHOUND and the Genome Soldiers. Along with Solid Snake and Solidus Snake, he is one of three "brothers" genetically engineered from cell samples taken from Big Boss in the Les Enfants Terribles project. Liquid Snake believes himself as being inferior to Solid Snake, as he was told that he was the recipient of all of Big Boss' "flawed" recessive genes. Because of this belief, Liquid holds a strong resentment towards Solid Snake, who supposedly inherited the better genetics, and wishes to defeat him in combat and reclaim what he felt was his birthright, thus proving his superiority.

Liquid is 183 cm tall, has an IQ of 180, and speaks seven languages fluently. He is an exact duplicate of Solid Snake in terms of appearances, with the only distinguishable feature being his darker skin tone and hairstyle (type and color). He also has a tattoo on his left arm, which resembles the Rod of Asclepius, but with a sword in its place. He sounds seemingly younger than Solid Snake as well as having a more British accent as well. In terms of personality, Liquid is shown displaying a more open, arrogant and loud attitude compared to Solid Snake, who is more cool, calm and confident.

Early Life
Liquid was raised in the UK shortly after birth and was the youngest person to serve in the Special Air Service, at only 18 years old. During the Gulf War in Iraq, he was assigned to track down and destroy mobile Scud missiles. In truth, he infiltrated the Middle East as a sleeper agent for the British SAS, but was taken prisoner by Iraqi forces and held captive as POW until 1994, when he was rescued by the U.S. Government.

Liquid Snake joined FOXHOUND in the year 2000, after Solid Snake and Colonel Campbell had already retired and left the unit. After Liquid joined, he became the field commander of FOXHOUND.

In 2005, he lead FOXHOUND as they seized Shadow Moses Island and the nuclear equipped Metal Gear REX, taking the DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker as hostages. He then demanded the preserved remains of Big Boss in order to produce a cure for the genetic defects of the Genome Army. Basing himself in the Shadow Moses facility, and supported by FOXHOUND, the Genome Army, and Metal Gear's nuclear capabilities, Liquid intended to recreate Outer Heaven. With these vast resources at his command, Liquid would throw the world into the third world war, wanting to fulfill Big Boss' wishes of giving soldiers a means to carry out their way of life.

During the course of Snake's mission to eliminate the nuclear threat, he was confronted by Liquid on several occasions. Initially, Liquid attacked Snake from a Hind D attack helicopter, but retreated when his helicopter is crippled by the Stinger missiles fired by Snake. He survived (his parachute is visible on a tree in the Snowfield of the base) and then tricked Snake into activating REX with Kenneth Baker's PAL card by posing as McDonell Benedict Miller (who was dead at the time of the incident) during radio calls.

The entire final act of the Shadow Moses Island incident is a series of battles between Snake and Liquid. First, Liquid piloted the Metal Gear REX and attacked Snake, but, with the help of Gray Fox, Snake destroyed the Metal Gear. Then, Liquid and Snake battled bare-handed atop the ruins of the Metal Gear, attempting to fling each other from the top of the ruined mech to the ground far below. While it seemed Snake was victorious in this struggle, Liquid, manning a machine-gun-armed military jeep, pursued him as he tried to escape from the self-destructing Shadow Moses facility. Ultimately, Liquid fell victim to the genetically-engineered FOXDIE virus, just outside the facility.

His influence did not stop with his death, however. He apparently managed to posthumously take control of former ally Revolver Ocelot (via transplant of right arm that once belonged to Liquid) during Ocelot's heist of the Metal Gear RAY prototype in 2007. Two years later, he tipped off Solid Snake and Otacon about the events unfolding at Big Shell and attempted to steal the prototype once again and go after The Patriots.

In a back-story (from 2007), Liquid's corpse was used as a decoy after the Tanker Incident, letting the public think that Snake was dead after the Tanker sank.

Sometime after the Big Shell Incident, Ocelot had Liquid's arm removed from his body and replaced with a fully cybernetic arm. Ocelot removed Liquid's arm and replaced it with a cybernetic prosthesis because Liquid's arm threw his psyche out of balance during the Tanker and Big Shell incidents. Ocelot believed that the arm was driving him insane in the presence of Solid Snake

It was not until the end of Solid Snake's mission that the Liquid persona gave way to the Ocelot persona and he revealed that he was in fact Liquid's doppleganger. It is also revealed that Ocelot underwent gene therapy and hypnosis to allow Liquid Snake to completely take over in order to fool The Patriots into battling him while Big Boss' recovery was in process.

See Liquid Ocelot.

Meanwhile, Liquid's corpse was put to further use; various body parts of his were used in the process of rebuilding Big Boss' damaged body. When revived, Big Boss revealed Ocelot's plan in full to Snake.

Trivia

 * Liquid's backstory of being captured in Iraq resembles the events of Bravo Two Zero, the ill-fated SAS eight-man patrol sent into the Gulf War.
 * When outside the control room of Metal Gear REX before Snake loses the PAL Card, the player can contact Liquid - who will still answer disguised as Master Miller, even though Liquid will appear to be sharing conversation with Ocelot if the player looks to the control room in first person view.
 * While never directly stated, and shown as not being possible thanks to the events of MGS4, it was hinted that Ocelot being the son of The Sorrow, a Spirit Medium Soldier, was the reason why Liquid Snake was able to take over Ocelot's body through his right arm which was grafted on to Ocelot. As a way of reinforcing this idea in the Comic Book version of Metal Gear Solid 2 when Snake appeared before Ocelot during the Tanker Incident the scene switches to inside Ocelot's mind where Liquid can be seen having a mental battle with Ocelot over control of his body. The Sorrow was also shown in the background expressing his disappointment that his son would be so easily possessed.
 * Killing enough human enemies in Metal Gear Solid 4 will cause Solid Snake to have a flashback of what Liquid told him at the end of Metal Gear Solid ("You enjoy all the killing"). The shock from this episode causes Snake to throw up and as a result the Psyche Gauge lowers drastically.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 4, during the opening stage of the final battle with Liquid Ocelot, images of Liquid from MGS1 flash on the screen, and the Encounter music from MGS1 is played. Liquid Ocelot's attack patterns in this stage are similar to the ones Liquid Snake used in the fistfight on REX. The pre-fight choreography also bears some resemblance to the Twin Snakes end battle cutscene with Liquid.

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