Cécile Cosima Caminades

Cécile Cosima Caminades was an ornithologist. During the 1974 Peace Walker Incident, she was recruited as a scout into Big Boss's Militaires Sans Frontières.

Early life and career
Born in Paris, France, Cécile Caminades later became an ornithologist. She also bore witness to one of her friends' older brothers going off to fight in the Algerian War when she was a young girl.

In late 1974, Cécile travelled to Costa Rica in order to continue her research on the distribution of Latin American bird species. One day, while observing the native quetzal, she accidentally recorded the voices of two women, on her portable cassette recorder, conducting a test exercise within an ancient Mayan temple. She was then discovered by armed soldiers of the CIA mercenary group Peace Sentinel and was soon captured. Imprisoned within a secret AI facility in the temple, Cécile had her equipment, supplies, and passport confiscated. The only thing they allowed her to keep were her undergarments, which was only as a precaution should she escape. Although blindfolded and restrained, Dr. Strangelove (one of the voices she had heard earlier), was kind to her and stated that she could leave within a month. However, Cécile eventually escaped, as she had an ornithologist meeting to attend to, and knocked one of the guards unconscious, stealing his ID card. During this time, she briefly glimpsed of a "tube" that was calling out for someone named "Jack." Barely succeeding in her escape, the ID card was later recovered by a CIA mercenary, and Cécile fled into the wilderness, exhausted.

Cécile was later found in the woods by mercenary leader Naked Snake (Big Boss), who had been attempting to locate the AI lab inside the ancient Mayan pyramid. At first, Cécile thought that he was one of the soldiers belonging to Peace Sentinel that were after her, though after realizing that he wasn't, she still told him to put down his weapon. Snake initially claimed to be an ornithologist looking for the red-listed quetzal for the Washington Treaty, allegedly because it wasn't marked, to which Cécile corrected him. She then thought that he may be a poacher, though Snake responded that the gun was for self-defense, and provided her with mate tea. After explaining to him what had happened, Snake realized that she was the person who had made the recording that he had received from Paz Ortega Andrade; one which had recorded the voice of his former mentor The Boss.

After Cécile described more on the AI facility, and the strange woman who had watched over her, Snake allowed her to return to Militaires Sans Frontières' Mother Base with him. He told her that she would not need a passport, or even her name to join their group, and that they could take her back to Paris at any time. Cécile eagerly accepted, mentioning that she needed a shower, a change of clothes, and a cigarette. Snake, although disturbed when he realized that The Boss's voice had come from the "tube," then called his subordinate Kazuhira Miller to pick Cécile up. Kaz was initially reluctant to do so, as there wasn't any more room for civilians on Mother Base, but relented after learning that not only was she a blonde Parisienne, but might also be Paz Andrade's missing friend. Big Boss then proceeded to plant a Fulton surface-to-air recovery balloon on her for extraction, asking whether she had ever wondered what it was like to be a bird.

After extracting her from Costa Rica and bringing her to Mother Base, Miller had her listen to the tape to see if it did indeed belong to her, which she confirmed. However, Miller also learned that she had never met Paz in her life, being at least ten years too old to be the friend described to them. In addition, she told them of the ID card taken from her by the CIA mercenary, describing his orange jacket, and that his location was near a quetzal nest. Since Mother Base had presented her with an opportunity to learn about Caribbean sea birds, she was happy to stay onboard Mother Base. Her experience with the Fulton surface-to-air-recovery balloon also had her consider quitting being an ornithologist and becoming a pilot instead. Because of Cécile's awareness and tracking skills as an ornithologist, Snake considered making her a scout in MSF.

Cécile briefly worked in the Mess Hall on Mother Base, helping to make gallo pinto with Paz and Amanda. She also asked if Paz had a crush on Snake, although Paz, while trying to remain ambiguous of it, was irritated that she would even think she had any feelings for him. Cécile herself was attracted to Snake and told Paz that he was "pretty sexy," causing Paz to privately remark that Cécile was "a ditz."

When Dr. Strangelove defected to the MSF after Peace Sentinel's defeat, she told Snake that she had chosen to detain Cécile as a compromise between saving her life and ensuring that The Boss AI (the "tube" Cécile had witnessed) was completed by the deadline. Strangelove had known full well that Peace Sentinel leader Hot Coldman would have had Cécile executed immediately if he found out that she had stumbled upon the AI test.

When Paz was later revealed to be a Cipher agent and hijacked Metal Gear ZEKE with the intention of launching a nuke at the East Coast of America should Big Boss refuse to join, Cécile expressed shock and anger, as she and Paz had planned to go on an ornithology trek, although she did eventually admit that she always found Paz having her tape suspicious.

Personality and traits
Cécile's personality is best summed up as "sultry." Similar to other Parisian French women at the time, Cécile's personality, which Big Boss described as being "uninhibited," was heavily influenced by the student movement in May of 1968. Although the MSF stance usually entailed abandoning one's native land, Cécile loved her home country, supporting the Foreign Legion and considering the Champs-Élysées to be "Heaven on Earth." Although she supported the Foreign Legion, however, she was nonetheless genuinely surprised when she learned from Big Boss that the Foreign Legion was the only image of France that he could picture other than La Marseillaise, the national anthem. Her exact views on the anthem were unknown, as she herself admitted that "not everyone was a fan" regarding the anthem due to the blood flowing in the streets lyric, but she did at least respect the anthem due to it ensuring that France did ultimately become democratic. She also spoke with an extremely thick French accent, owing to her background, and had limited skills in speaking English, although she admitted that she sometimes pondered whether her mastery may have been better than Big Boss', when the latter ended up confusing Existentialism with "Exitentialism."

While staying at Mother Base, Cécile had various (comical) disagreements with MSF subcommander Kazuhira Miller. When Kaz described how he enjoyed listening to the sounds of steam locomotives, she revealed how much she detested the noise and the smoke they created, telling him that he was "less civilised" than she had previously thought. On one occasion, she became annoyed with Miller when he supplied '72 French wine to personnel on the base, though she later became drunk from it herself.

As a veteran ornithologist, who greatly enjoyed her work, Cécile could mimic various bird calls, including the quetzal. When asked if she could mimic other animals by Snake, she used the onomatopoeic words commonly associated with a monkey, a sheep, a pig, and even gave one for a rabbit. She loved talking to Snake giggling many times in their conversations especially when making animal noises and teased him. Snake considered making her a scout after learning of her experience in jungle terrain.

She also seemed to hold religious, or at the very least spiritual beliefs, as she told Snake, while the latter was infiltrating the U.S. Missile Base in Nicaragua, that she would pray for the success of his mission and his safety.

Although well-versed in ornithology, Cécile's overall intelligence was somewhat light, with Paz once remarking privately that she was a "ditz" after a conversation between the two forced the latter to conceal her actual nature barely due to her mission for Cipher.

Behind the scenes
Cécile's middle and last name in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is pronounced as "Kojima Kaminandesu," which translates to "Kojima is God." Miller even references this in one of the Briefing Files, asking her if she could add in Kojima as her middle name. Her name and appearance is based on the real-life Cécile Caminades, the communications manager for Konami France during Peace Walker 's development. Although her debut was in Peace Walker, the foundations for her creation had been laid back in 2007-2008, two and a half years prior to Peace Walker 's release, due to director Hideo Kojima and Caminandes making a deal about him making a character based on her in one of his next games.

During the cutscene in which Cécile is first introduced, she says the phrase, "Ah, tu m'as trouvée! C'est moi le Loup!" to which Big Boss responds, "Fini de jouer à cache-cache. Dis-moi qui tu es"; the phrases translate to "Ah, you found me! It's me the Wolf," and, "Finished playing hide and seek. Tell me who you are," respectively. When Cécile's title card appears onscreen, the player can position the camera reticule over her cleavage, which causes a "popping" sound to be heard.

In the Japanese version of Peace Walker, Cecile was implied to have been the partial namesake for the "Bon Curry" retort pouched rations in large part due to Miller's infatuation with her, due to the "Bon" in the name being French for "good" or in some cases "delicious." However, this was cut from the international versions, due to the item itself being changed to Spicy Curry for copyright-related purposes.

Mother Base staff
"I've been thinking of giving up on studying birds and learning to fly myself. Want to hear my quetzal call?"

- Cécile's character quote on Mother Base's staff menu.

Cécile is a unique staff member at Mother Base, available after Snake finds her on the way to the AI Lab. Her skill ("Bird Watcher"), which causes enemy soldiers tracked in the center of screen while using binoculars to have the same effect as Enemy Search. She is also the only unique character whose skill is shared with other soldiers. Her job is Ornithologist.

"A French ornithologist, she came to Costa Rica to research Central American bird populations, but got lost among some mysterious ruins and was taken captive by persons unknown."

- Cécile's bio on the Mother Base model viewer, in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.


 * Life: 2500
 * Psyche: 2500
 * GMP: 2545/2573


 * Combat Unit: E
 * Shoot: E
 * Reload: -
 * Throw: D
 * Place: C
 * Walk: -
 * Run: -
 * Fight: E
 * Defense: D
 * R&D Team: D
 * Mess Hall Team: A
 * Medical Team: C
 * Intel Team: A

Other appearances
Cecile later appeared in the versus battle on the series official site, where she fought against Strangelove.

"STRENGTHS: Beautiful Bird Scout for Big Boss’s MSF WEAKNESSES: Conversations with Kaz, Deep Intelligence FEATURED FACT: Despite minimal formal combat training, Cecile was able to knock a Peace Sentinel mercenary guard unconscious and escape into the jungle FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- Cecile's data on Versus Battle

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
 * Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops (trading card)