Arsenal Gear

Arsenal Gear was a submersible, mobile fortress with the ability to monitor, block, and tamper with internet communications in order to further the goals of the Patriots. Arsenal is a metaphor for the change of warfare in the last decades of the 20th Century, from a nuclear war to a war of culture, information, and espionage. Its concept was derived from the Arsenal Ship Project.

Origins
On January 24th 2000, a notorious cracker group perpetrated a signal data hacking assault on the NSA facility in Fort Meade, |which suffered a total system shutdown for a 72-hour period. The result was a full review of NSA's safety measures, which in turn led to the decision to shift the data-gathering operations to an isolated location that would be safe from physical attack as well as cyber-terrorism (in other words, the start of the Arsenal Gear project).

After the sinking of the U.S.S. Discovery in 2007, the Patriots sent out a dummy tanker to the exact spot where Discovery was sunk, sank it, and used it as a means to cover up the construction of Arsenal Gear, the biggest and most fearsome Metal Gear the world had yet realized. Arsenal Gear was used as a means of global censorship, control and support. Within Arsenal was housed GW, the AI designed by Emma Emmerich which controlled the entire warship, in addition to posing as an artifical version of Colonel Campbell during the Big Shell Incident. The Arsenal Gear piloted by GW was not the only Arsenal Gear in existence, however, nor was GW the only AI.

During the Manhattan Incident in 2009, Raiden and Solid Snake infiltrated the Big Shell and eventually made their way to the main computer room to implant a virus, created by Emma Emmerich, into GW. Snake and Olga Gurlukovich then allowed for Raiden to be captured, gaining them access to the inside of Arsenal Gear. After a quick torture/interrogation at the hands of Solidus Snake and Revolver Ocelot, Raiden was able to escape and enter the "stomach" of the massive warship. While inside, GW began to malfunction due to the virus, before eventually ceasing communication with Raiden completely. After Raiden did battle with the small army of production model Metal Gear RAY units guarding Arsenal, Solidus revealed his plans of handing over Arsenal to Dead Cell leader Fortune, as he knew she would use the warship to challenge the Patriots' power. However, after betraying Solidus and shooting Fortune, Ocelot piloted the prototype RAY and attempted to kill Solid Snake, Raiden, and Solidus, but Fortune used her abilities to save them from Ocelot's assult.

After Ocelot's failed attack, Liquid Snake's personality took over Ocelot's body and escaped in the prototype RAY, though not before sending Arsenal on a direct collision course with Manhattan, in order to later recover the damaged GW AI on board. Crashing into the banks of New York City, Arsenal destroyed a sizable portion of the lower westside of the city before stopping at Federal Hall and flinging them onto the rooftop, allowing them one final battle atop the national monument. During its descent on New York, Arsenal destroyed several United States monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, which was pushed to the front of the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island. Presumably, the Patriots were able to use their core AI to cover up the truth behind Arsenal's crash into the city.

In 2014, Liquid Ocelot had managed to piece together the fragments of the damaged GW AI, installing it within a stolen Arsenal Gear-class battleship that served as the base of operations for his PMC mother company.

Payload
Arsenal Gear was an extremely large warship, housing – and also requiring – a significant force for its defense. As Arsenal headed towards lower Manhattan, it was just small enough to fit under the width of the Verrazano Bridge. Its on-board security defenses included:
 * 25 mass-produced Metal Gear RAY units, each seperately operated by Arsenal's core AI, GW
 * An elite detachment of Arsenal Tengu, power suit equipped and highly trained Gurlukovich Mercenaries armed with P90s and H.F. blades
 * Numerous surveillance cameras for indoor security
 * An entire payload of nuclear warheads, including a purified hydrogen bomb

One of its flaws, pointed out by Solidus Snake after GW was destroyed, was that it was virtually worthless without a nuclear payload, the RAYs to protect it, and full sea, land, and air support. Unless it was capable of sustaining such needs, Arsenal Gear was nothing more than "a gigantic coffin."

Trivia

 * The areas inside Arsenal Gear are named after regions of the intestines.
 * Arsenal Gear was the only Metal Gear to not have legs of any kind, a drastic deviation from Dr. Granin's original design, hence its new name.
 * Solidus's criticism of Arsenal Gear is essentially true of any large warship.
 * Though Metal Gear RAY's design was based on the manta ray, Arsenal Gear possessed a more similar shape to said animal.

Behind the Scenes

 * It is unclear how Arsenal Gear could physically contain the cavernous internal space labelled as "Rectum" in-game, or what purpose this vast, seemingly all but empty location could possibly serve. Whether this area was some kind of VR simulation or hallucination is not known.
 * Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the sequence of Arsenal Gear crashing into Manhattan Island was edited to remove the actual crash sequence entirely. Instead, the sequence jump-cuts from Arsenal Gear heading towards Manhattan to it already at rest against the side of Federal Hall. The unedited sequence, supposedly also featuring Arsenal Gear destroying the Verrazzano Bridge rather than simply passing under it, has not surfaced since the release of Metal Gear Solid 2. However, some footage was discovered on the disc. This footage included a shot of the Statue of Liberty, made to look like a news broadcast. The music playing over the footage, and the female news reporter who was going to be talking over the footage, were both references to Policenauts. The actual crash was kept in the novelization, however.
 * The platform where Raiden fights the mass-produced RAYs is similar to the one Snake stands on in the camera missions from Metal Gear Solid: Integral.
 * Originally, Arsenal Gear was to have a shrine onboard, which was where Raiden was originally supposed to fight Vamp, but this ended up being cut from the game.
 * There is an item in Metal Gear Solid 4 called Arsenal Compress, a type of back pain relievers. On the front and back of its box shows an image of Arsenal Gear.
 * The original script from Metal Gear Solid 2 states that it was in fact Liquid Snake who caused Arsenal to crash into Manhattan, though the dialogue was probably removed from the final game for the same reasons that the scene itself was cut. However, in the Novelization for the same game, the dialogue was kept intact . Strangely, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database claims that Solidus Snake was responsible for crashing Arsenal Gear into Manhattan, despite claiming in another article that he lost control over it.