Elisa and Ursula

Elisa and Ursula were the split personalities of a young woman who possessed powerful ESP and psychic abilities. Their wildly different personalities made it fairly easy for the woman to pass herself off as a pair of twins. Each personality had different abilities and training.

Early life
The girl who would become Elisa and Ursula was born in East Germany, then brought to the Soviet Union sometime during her childhood, where her parents worked as nuclear physicists. She became a survivor of the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in the Ural Mountains, near Ozyorsk (Chelyabinsk-65), in 1957. The explosion killed her parents and the image of "ashes of death" falling from the sky stayed with her as she grew up. After her exposure to nuclear fallout, she developed her psychic powers and was sent back to her country for study.

Raised in a lab in East Germany, the girl developed powerful ESP and psychic abilities (including telepathy and precognition). Experiments intended to artificially augment her mental powers, split her personality into "Elisa" and "Ursula," with the latter gaining greater powers at the expense of her emotions. In 1966, they were freed by Gene during a CIA mission to capture psychic inmates from the facility, and taken to America. Their stay there made them realize that America only really cared for their powerful abilities, and that the Capitalists and Communists were one and the same. Gene then took them with him to help in his plan to establish Army's Heaven, using his own personal charisma to enthrall them both into joining him. Ursula, the more powerful of the two, later joined FOX, while Elisa was hired for her skills as a doctor. Both were trained in their respective fields by Gene.

In 1970, Ursula became a loyal follower of Gene while Elisa became a researcher who watched over Null by keeping him under control and monitoring his culture tank. Ursula accompanied Gene and Lt. Cunningham attempting to search via a Hind A for Naked Snake (Big Boss) and Roy Campbell that had earlier escaped from the prison. While passing over the Hospital, Ursula briefly sensed Snake inside the building, which later forced him to hide. Elisa was chosen to be the chief researcher responsible for observing Null by Cunningham because of her status as a specialist, in order to hasten Null's maintenance period. Meanwhile, Ursula sensed that the then-under construction/repair heliport's scaffolding will soon collapse due to an accident, and attempted to warn Gene, who sensed it as well. While treating Null in the tank, Elisa met Snake and supplied some anti-malaria drugs for Campbell after talking with him, as well as telling them to go to the harbor to find what they were looking for. She also warned Snake that should he ever encounter Ursula, then he must shoot her as otherwise "he'll already be dead."

Shortly after Cunningham captured Snake, Elisa gained access to his cell by convincing the guard to give them a moment alone, after bringing the soldier a meal, and claiming that "sometimes she longs for a strong man". She then communicated telepathically to Snake about Gene's plan to launch the nukes, although at the cost of her stamina. When the guard said that it was time to wrap it up, she covered up her actions by claiming that she "must have gotten too into it". However, Ursula tipped Cunningham off that Snake would end up being rescued by his resistance group, and they were ambushed upon breaking Snake free. Elisa then helped in their escape by stealing a military truck and ramming Cunningham's flying platform, before driving the group away from the area. When Elisa was introduced to Campbell, he jokingly asked Snake how he was able to get a girl as young as her to join them, suggesting that he should give her "another five years".

Elisa had decided to help Snake's group partially due to the fact that she simply could not support Gene anymore after his decision to use nuclear weapons; the Kyshtym disaster still haunted Elisa in her dreams, wherein she saw her parents dying in the explosion. While Ursula foresaw Big Boss "plunging the world into fear", Elisa instead saw Snake defeating Metal Gear and also felt that he would "make a great father one day."

During the infiltration of Metal Gear RAXA's assembly plant, Snake learned the truth of Elisa's dissociative identity disorder, and that Ursula was not her twin sister but an alternate personality. Gene used his powers of suggestion to forcefully trigger Ursula's awakening; the process of which caused Elisa to scream out in pain. Ursula then piloted RAXA and fought Snake, using her powerful psychokinesis to allow the machine to move and act in an animal-like manner. Snake was forced to destroy RAXA with explosive weaponry, with Ursula still inside the cockpit. Though presumed dead, she was able to survive the battle.

Elisa and Ursula later acted in unison when "they" attempted to prevent Gene from launching a nuclear strike with Metal Gear. In addition, because Gene had removed his mental shielding from his belief that Ursula perished, she also deflected his attacks, having read his mind. However, Gene was able to overpower her and stabbed her in the chest, leaving her to die. While Snake cradled her in his arms, the final words of Elisa/Ursula told Snake of several future events that her two personas had foreseen: Snake would succeed in destroying the Metal Gear, but would build a new Metal Gear to replace it, and that one of his sons would bring the world to ruin, while another would save it.

Personality and traits
The girl, due to her dissociative identity disorder, possessed two differing personality traits. Elisa, the first of the personalities, was kind-hearted and desired to help people, evidenced by her aiding Snake, and also her decision to stop Gene. The other, Ursula, was outwardly cold-hearted, emotionless, and also expressed a disgust towards Big Boss, evidenced by her expressing her intent to kill Big Boss before he could spawn to his "accursed Snake children" upon awakening. The one thing they shared in common was their disgust towards the use of nuclear weapons, which had stemmed from her being irradiated at Kyshtym, evidenced by the motivations behind Elisa's defection towards Snake's group, and later Ursula's turning on Gene before he could launch the ICBMG.

Abilities
Elisa and Ursula both possessed numerous psychic abilities, including telepathy, psychokinesis, and precognition. As mentioned above, Ursula was stronger: when she piloted RAXA, she psychokinetically controlled it to the point where it moved and acted as though it was alive, whereas Elisa needed to physically touch Big Boss to induce a telepathic conversation between the two, and was left exhausted to the point of physical collapse afterwards. In addition, Ursula, and to a lesser extent Elisa, were also capable of levitating themselves, as evidenced by when Ursula boarded the ICBMG upon being "awakened" by Gene, and later when unveiling her survival and her turning against Gene at the launch control room. It is implied that Ursula had some control over machines, as shown when she made a control panel explode with the power of her mind. Although their mind reading abilities were second to none, an opponent moving at superhuman speeds could surpass their reaction time, as Gene demonstrated when he stabbed Elisa/Ursula in the chest, before she could defend herself.

Behind the scenes
In Noriyoshi Ohrai's artwork for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, as well as the character models for Portable Ops and Portable Ops Plus, Ursula is depicted with gray hair while Elisa is depicted with blond hair. She is the only elite FOX member that does not wear a Sneaking Suit in the game.

In Portable Ops, the player has the option to unlock either Elisa or Ursula as a playable character; for obvious reasons, both cannot exist in the player's squad simultaneously. To unlock Elisa, the player's Med Unit must be Level 80, whereas for Ursula, it needs to be greater than Level 80 (around an even number). A radio call with Para-Medic will also briefly allude to unlocking Elisa/Ursula and the method of doing so. However, in the European version of Portable Ops Plus, it is possible to obtain both of them. First, the player must have Elisa and Gene in their team when they start new data and import their team, then simply beat Boss Rush and Ursula will join their unit.

"FOX's medical chief and Ursula's twin sister. Provides assistance to Snake."

- Character description in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus

"Young female member of CIA Special Forces unit FOX. Usually seen quietly following Gene, she is known to wield incredible psychic powers."

- Character description in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (non-canon)
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (flashbacks)

Notes and references


Elisa y Ursula