Naomi Hunter

Dr. Naomi Hunter was the chief of FOXHOUND's medical staff prior to the Shadow Moses Incident, and a member of Solid Snake's support team during that mission. She was affectionately known as "Dr. Naomi" among her staff.

Early life and career
Naomi was born some time in the late 1970s. In 1979, her parents were killed during the Rhodesian Civil War by Frank Jaeger. Frank deeply regretted this action, and after finding Naomi near the Zambezi River half-dead from starvation, subsequently adopted and raised her as a sister. She would never discover that Frank was the one who was responsible for her parents' deaths.

With the help of Big Boss, whom she met in 1980s Mozambique, Naomi emigrated to the United States with Frank. Her adoptive brother continued to care for her until she entered college, after which he returned to fight in Africa. Unaware of her true name, parents, or ethnic origin, Naomi became interested in genetics in an effort to learn more about herself. She later achieved a doctorate in genetics, specializing in nanotechnology-based gene therapy.

After Solid Snake defeated Big Boss and crippled Frank (then known as Gray Fox) during the Zanzibar Land Disturbance in 1999, Naomi developed an intense hatred for him and vowed revenge. She obtained the identity of one Dr. Naomi Hunter, who had gone missing in the Middle East some years prior.

In 2003, Naomi was a civilian contractor sent by the private biotechnology company ATGC to oversee gene therapy for FOXHOUND members and the Genome Soldiers, in cooperation with the United States Department of Defense. FOXHOUND's medical chief, Dr. Clark, had been responsible for testing gene therapy techniques on Gray Fox, causing Naomi to comply with a request to kill her from Big Mama and Revolver Ocelot, itself part of a bitter dispute among the Patriots' founding members. Naomi assisted her brother's escape from FOXHOUND's medical research division after he killed Dr. Clark, covering it up as a lab accident and faking his death in the reports. She later succeeded Clark as head of FOXHOUND's medical staff and became chief geneticist, eventually perfecting the Pentagon's assassination virus, which she named FOXDIE. Unbeknownst to the Pentagon, however, Naomi completed the virus only to exact her revenge on Snake. At some point, she had an affair with Richard Ames.

Naomi was a member of the radio support team that was assembled to aid Snake during the Shadow Moses Incident in 2005. During Snake's briefing, she injected him with various nanomachines, nootropics, and an anti-freezing peptide to prevent his blood and other bodily fluids from freezing in the Alaskan climate. However, Naomi had also been ordered by the Secretary of Defense Jim Houseman to inject Snake with the FOXDIE virus as part of his mission.

Naomi, still seeking revenge, had secretly modified FOXDIE so that, although it would still kill the rebelling FOXHOUND members, it would also target Snake himself. However, she had set the virus to a "wildcard" value for Snake, leaving him vulnerable at a later time. Even Naomi herself did not know when the virus would awaken within Snake. Fellow radio support team member Nastasha Romanenko would later comment that this must have been the best revenge that Naomi could think of, condemning Snake to live in a fearful limbo.

While Snake was being held in a prison cell following a torture session, Naomi was shocked to discover that Big Boss was Snake's father, and the fact that he considered Frank Jaeger to be his best friend regardless of their fight.

Somehow the Pentagon discovered Naomi's re-engineering of the FOXDIE virus, and arrested her to find out what modifications she had made. In order to hide this from Snake, Ames forced Campbell to claim that Naomi had already been placed under suspicion of being a spy for the terrorists, and that she had been caught making coded messages to the base to justify the arrest. Naomi later managed to pocket a spare Codec and contacted Snake, explaining to him her past, FOXDIE's true role in the operation, and why she had wanted to kill him. However, she was subdued by one of Ames' men as well as Campbell before she could finish.

After realizing that Snake was not the merciless killer she had thought him to be, Naomi eventually forgave him for Frank's situation, following his and Snake's cooperation in destroying Metal Gear REX. Although it was Frank's last wish for Naomi to know the truth behind her parents' death, Snake withheld this information because Gray Fox was the only family Naomi had ever known. Instead, he told her that Frank said to forget about him and go on with her life. Snake also told Naomi that Frank said that he always loved her. Finally, Snake told her that Frank's actions saved him, her, and the world, which caused Naomi to be emotional. Unaware of when FOXDIE would kill him, Snake then asked Naomi how much time he had left. She told him to live his life to the fullest until it did.

Post-Shadow Moses
After the Shadow Moses Incident, Naomi was arrested on charges of treason and placed in a maximum security facility. However, according to Nastasha's novel In the Darkness of Shadow Moses, Naomi was broken out of the facility three weeks later during her debriefing, with the aid of Liquid Ocelot. Snake was suspected of engineering her escape and the incident was subsequently added to his rap sheet. After her escape, the CIA labeled Naomi as one of their most wanted international terrorists.

Having Naomi conduct further research into nanomachine technology, Liquid Ocelot planned to use this knowledge to take control of the SOP battlefield system, introduced in the early 2010s. In 2014, Naomi accompanied Liquid to the Middle East where he attempted to hack into the system using Liquid Snake's DNA chip, in order to lock it down. She briefly encountered a now-aged Solid Snake in the chaos that ensued as a direct result of Liquid's interference with the system. She injected herself with a nanomachine suppressor, passing the syringe on to Snake afterwards, and then told him that, unless he wanted to remain a prisoner of fate, he should go and "fulfill his destiny," before departing onboard Liquid's chopper.

Afterwards, Naomi sent Otacon and Snake a video message accompanied with a Soliton Radar map, claiming to have been kidnapped by Liquid Ocelot in order to hijack SOP. In reality, she was working with him in order to destroy the Patriots' AI network, as the Patriots were beginning to implement their plans of control over the civilian population. Snake found her in South America, and she discovered the cause of Snake's accelerated aging, as well as informing him that FOXDIE would cause an epidemic due to a genetic mutation in the virus. She also found the second strain of FOXDIE within him (which was injected by the Patriots (via Drebin) to kill EVA, Ocelot, and Big Boss). Snake then was able to retrieve Naomi from South America, although unbeknownst to him or Otacon, Liquid Ocelot and his PMC forces let her escape so she would complete FOXALIVE for them.

Naomi then accompanied Snake and Otacon to Eastern Europe. Aboard the Nomad, she formed a bond with Sunny (the daughter of Olga Gurlukovich) and became romantically involved with Otacon. She also told Snake about the differences between his DNA and Liquid Snake's DNA when explaining the SOP's genetic locks, and also stated that these same differences made FOXDIE unable to target Solid Snake, but infected Liquid Snake. She even felt a deep sympathy for Raiden, the newest Cyborg Ninja (succeeding her foster brother and Sunny's mother) and was angered that the same project was still continuing on. She created 2/3 of the FOXALIVE program to destroy GW, leaving the last part to be completed by Sunny. She left with Sunny to witness Raiden's recovery at Dr. Madnar's lab, but then she, in a move unanticipated by Snake or Otacon, returned to Liquid Ocelot.

After Vamp's death, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, due to exposure to large doses of radiation during her genetic research. Her illness had been kept in check through the use of nanomachines, though after learning from Raiden that Sunny had completed FOXALIVE, she chose to die by suppressing said nanomachines shortly afterward, while Snake, Otacon and Raiden fled the underground base on board REX. Her life was ultimately ended in the same place as that of her brother, Gray Fox, nine years earlier.

Prior to her death, Naomi had left behind two messages: the first was a video pre-programmed to play back once FOXALIVE had infected the Patriots' AI network, in which she explained to Snake and Otacon her actual plan, and apologized for manipulating them; the second was intended for Big Boss upon his awakening, which concerned the second strain of FOXDIE that had replaced the mutated old strain within Snake's body. This meant that the old strain would not lead to a biological pandemic, and thus, Snake would not need to commit suicide in order to prevent a potential outbreak.

False identity
Although Naomi Hunter was given her name by Frank Jaeger after he adopted her, the name was taken from another doctor who had disappeared in the Middle East some years earlier. Her case file claimed that she had been born in New York City, that her parents had been killed in a car collision, and that her brother, ten years her senior, had been a Marine, who was killed in a training-related-accident when she was seventeen.

When questioned about her past during the Shadow Moses Incident, Naomi gave a similarly false account. She stated that her Japanese grandfather had become assistant secretary to J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI and had gone undercover to bring down the Mafia in New York in the 1950s. Liquid Snake (disguised as Master Miller) later revealed to Solid Snake that this was false, as Hoover had been a renowned racist, having employed only white FBI agents in his time as director (1924–1972), and the Mafia undercover operations had first began in Chicago in 1960. She later comes clean to Solid Snake and admits to having bought all of her identification.

Personality and traits
Having been a victim of war from a young age, Naomi had a deep resentment for armed conflict. During the Shadow Moses Incident, she often made her displeasure with Snake's attitude towards fighting known. Even though both Frank and her benefactor Big Boss were renowned mercenaries, Naomi disliked their profession, even referring to the Outer Heaven mercenaries as "rent-a-war bastards."

Naomi despised Snake's habit of smoking, taking it upon herself to make sure he wouldn't hurt himself due to nasty effect cigarettes could have on him over time. She first expressed her disgust of Snake's habit during the mission briefing for the Shadow Moses operation, where when Snake had began smoking a lit cigarette, she shortly grabs it from his mouth and crushes under her shoe much to the annoyance of Snake. She was later shocked by Snake when he revealed that he smuggled his cigarettes onto the island in his stomach, much to her chagrin. Ten years after Shadow Moses, when Snake began suffering from accelerated aging, Naomi became deeply upset with Snake when he chose to smoke a cigarette while she was performing a medical examination on him, feeling that Snake wasn't doing himself any good by worsening his condition with his smoking habit.

Naomi was shown to be a very vengeful person as she had no qualms getting her own hands dirty in order to get revenge on Solid Snake for crippling her brother Frank by programming FOXDIE to kill Snake, and also made it very clear that she intended to exact revenge on FOXHOUND exactly the same way as well. Despite her hatred of Snake and barely letting it show at times, she nonetheless expressed some shock when Snake conceded her implication that he was "heartless" shortly after he saved Meryl Silverburgh from Psycho Mantis. However, her desires for revenge and her hatred of Snake abated after she learned more of his character through the incident. Naomi was also known to have manipulated people who cared for her, though she did show remorse for her actions.

Naomi possessed some religious beliefs, as she referred to various ravens as being "God's creatures" if Snake killed any of them. Ironically, she shares the name of Ruth's mother-in-law from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Naomi held much anger towards the painful cybernetic and genetic experimentation that Frank had been subjected to against his will. She thus expressed great sympathy towards Raiden in 2014 due to his cyborg nature, and was saddened to discover that such experimentation had continued.

Unconfirmed history
After leaving college, Naomi joined the Tokyo Police Bureau Police Science Laboratory where she specialized in DNA testing. She later became dissatisfied with the weak organization of the department and the lack of precision in the DNA testing itself, and departed soon after. Naomi then became a genetic counselor at a gene diagnosis firm, but as before, she felt a paradox between her work with gene therapy and the natural order of life, and resigned six months later, amid investigations regarding her parents and family. Naomi was married by the time of the Shadow Moses Incident.

After Gray Fox's first encounter with Solid Snake on Shadow Moses Island, Naomi had a brief nervous breakdown and ran to a bathroom before telling herself to calm down. After being arrested, she then proceeded to leave the interrogation wing, believing that Campbell still thought the interrogation process was still in session.

Behind the scenes
Jennifer Hale voiced Naomi with an English accent in the original Metal Gear Solid. However, when she reprised her role for the 2004 remake, The Twin Snakes, she used an American accent instead. In the same game, Mei Ling's and Nastasha's accents were also changed. Naomi's change in accent was retained for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The Metal Gear Solid novelization stated that she spoke in an Ivy league accent. According to Yoji Shinkawa in The Making of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Naomi Hunter as well as Rosemary were part of the reason why he found designing female characters more difficult, since Hideo Kojima viewed them as his ideal woman while Shinkawa personally doesn't.

Naomi's fake surname was originally going to be "Kay." According to Hideo Kojima, he wanted to use the name Kay as it is an anagram of Konami, but he decided to use Hunter instead as it is the English translation of her brother's surname, Jaeger.

In Metal Gear Solid, Naomi claims to have been found in Rhodesia "sometime in the 80's." However, this is clearly a mistake on her part since Rhodesia became known as Zimbabwe in 1979. It's likely that she actually meant the 1970s since that is when she was found and adopted by Frank Jaeger.

In an optional Codec conversation, Naomi will erroneously tell Snake that antibiotics can cure a cold. In reality, antibiotics won't cure a cold as it's a virus, not a bacterial infection.

In the Japanese versions, Naomi was voiced by Hiromi Tsuru, who also voiced another female scientist of moral ambiguity, Bulma from the Dragon Ball franchise.

In Metal Gear Solid, if the player kills any ravens, Naomi will say "Poor things. Ravens are God's creatures too, Snake."

In Kojima's "Grand Game Plan" for Metal Gear Solid 2, Naomi was to have left America to join the Médecins Sans Frontières in Paris. In Metal Gear Solid 4, it is revealed that she actually fled to South America after escaping from prison.

Naomi, along with several other characters from the Metal Gear series, makes a special cameo appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a collectible sticker, which can be used for enhancement in the Subspace Emissary Adventure Mode. Her sticker can be used by either Princess Peach or Princess Zelda, and it grants them an increase in leg attack power by 5.

Both the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database and the official Metal Gear Solid 4 website erroneously state that it was the CIA that ordered Naomi to inject Snake with FOXDIE. It was actually the DIA that instructed her to do so. In addition, the Database incorrectly states that Naomi claimed her father had served in the FBI, rather than her grandfather. Master Miller also incorrectly says that Naomi said her father was Japanese instead of her grandfather.

Concept artwork for Naomi in Metal Gear Solid 4 indicated that she would have worn a parka jacket.

Versus Battle
Naomi appeared in Vs. Battle on the series official site, where she fought against Amanda Valenciano Libre, and later Meryl.

"STRENGTHS: FOXDIE Founder, Sister to Gray Fox WEAKNESSES: Radiation Exposure During Research FEATURED FACT: Naomi sympathized with Raiden due to her love for her “brother” Frank Jaeger and the painful cybernetic experiments he experienced FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- Naomi Hunter bio in Vs. Battle; Naomi vs. Amanda

"STRENGTHS: Gorgeous Genetics Genius & Sister of Gray Fox WEAKNESSES: Her Desire for Revenge Clouded The Truth FEATURED FACT: Only after injecting Solid Snake with FOXDIE did Naomi finally learned the truth that he was her ally rather than her enemy, and was the best friend of her adopted brother Gray Fox FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- Naomi Hunter bio in Vs. Battle; Naomi vs. Meryl

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid/Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
 * Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions (non-canon)
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (mentioned)
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
 * Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops (trading card)