Venom Snake

"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea. I will always be with you. Plant your roots in me. I won't see you end as ashes. You're all diamonds."

- Venom Snake to his fallen Diamond Dogs

Punished "Venom" Snake was a mercenary commander, formerly a combat medic for Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF), who led Diamond Dogs and Outer Heaven as one of Big Boss's most trusted lieutenants.

At the time still a medic, Venom Snake saved Big Boss's life during the destruction of MSF in 1975, with him losing his left arm and both men falling into a coma in the process. While comatose, Venom underwent hypnotherapy and, after Big Boss had reawakened from his own coma in 1984, plastic surgery so that he could act as a body double for Big Boss. This was done in order to protect Big Boss from XOF forces who had destroyed MSF nine years earlier.

In 1984, Venom Snake was given command over the mercenary unit Diamond Dogs, which had been founded by Kazuhira Miller as a successor to MSF. While in charge, Venom Snake defeated the XOF unit and took vengeance on its leader, Skull Face.

Venom Snake went on to command the military fortress of Outer Heaven during the time the real Big Boss returned to FOXHOUND. In 1995, Venom Snake was killed by Solid Snake, one of Big Boss's clones, in an operation commanded by the real Big Boss himself.

Militaires Sans Frontières
"He was always the best man we had."

- Big Boss on Venom Snake during tape "Doublethink"

Around the time of the Peace Walker Incident in 1974, Venom Snake served as a member of Militaires Sans Frontières, acting as a combat medic. According to Big Boss, Venom Snake was "always the best man we had", implying that he was an incredibly capable soldier. Venom Snake was also very close with Morpho, Kaz and Big Boss as they were all good friends.

XOF Trojan Horse operation
On March 16, 1975, Venom Snake was stationed on board the helicopter sent to extract MSF commander Big Boss and rescued POWs Chico and Paz Ortega Andrade.

During the flight back to Mother Base, Big Boss ordered Venom to look over the unconscious Paz, after Chico had noticed surgical scars on her abdomen. Suspecting that a bomb had been concealed inside her, Venom Snake was forced to operate on her immediately, as there was no time to administer anesthesia. He successfully removed the bomb from her gut.

Although the bomb was quickly disposed of, they had been unaware of the fact that a second bomb had been planted inside Paz's vaginal cavity. After coming to, Paz, aware of the impending detonation, jumped out of the helicopter to prevent the MSF personnel from being killed along with her. As Venom Snake shielded Big Boss while the bomb detonated, his body bore the brunt of the explosion, before the helicopter was sent into a collision with an XOF chopper.

Both men survived the incident and entered into a coma. Venom Snake had suffered specifically extensive injuries. His left hand had to be amputated and 108 foreign agents (shrapnel, human bone and teeth) had been embedded in his body, which, for the most part, could be removed successfully. However, certain pieces of shrapnel, which were located close to his heart and inside his cerebral cortex, were too risky to extract as impairment or even death would have been likely to occur upon removal. Ocelot also implied the injuries were severe enough that he was effectively dead.

The Phantom Pain
On February 26, 1984, Venom Snake was woken up from his induced coma. At the behest of Zero, Venom Snake was given plastic surgery to resemble Big Boss so he could act as a decoy for XOF. In order to ensure the ruse worked, he was also given hypnotherapy to have him possess Big Boss's memories and thus have him believe he was the real Big Boss. On March 11, another patient named Ishmael, who in actuality was the real Big Boss in disguise, managed to successfully get Venom Snake out of the hospital he was in. As the two escaped in an ambulance, the real Big Boss was knocked unconscious after taking a shot from a helicopter. Venom Snake attempted to drive the ambulance, but he crashed into a river bank. When Venom Snake regained consciousness, Ishmael was gone, and he was greeted by Ocelot, who would accompany Venom Snake on a trip to Afghanistan in order to rescue Miller. After rescuing Miller, the three returned to the newly constructed Mother Base, where Venom Snake took command of Diamond Dogs. Venom Snake performed several missions in order to expand their new Mother Base so that they could fight Cipher. Unbeknownst to Venom Snake until later, Ocelot was aware of Venom Snake's true identity the whole time, and he was monitoring Venom Snake as part of a series of tests to see if the hypnotherapy to turn Venom Snake into Big Boss's body double had truly worked, which it did. Upon confirming the hypnotherapy's success, Ocelot preformed a similar technique on himself, as to trick himself into believing that Venom Snake was indeed the one and only "Big Boss." Venom Snake and Diamond Dogs rose to huge heights as they collected resources, expanded their facilities, and swelled their ranks with volunteers and "recruits" forcibly extracted from the field. Venom Snake and Miller were eventually able to exact revenge on Skull Face and his XOF unit. After shooting off Skull Face's right arm and leg, mirroring injuries sustained by Miller when he was originally captured by XOF, Venom Snake and Miller left him to die as Huey Emmerich finished him off. Venom Snake later exiled Huey for his recklessness (more specifically, his collaboration with Eli as well as causing a devastating parasite outbreak and Wolbachia mutation on Mother Base that forced Venom Snake to kill many of his own men that were infected). Some time later, Venom Snake would learn from Ishmael that he was a body double and that Ishmael himself was Big Boss. Venom Snake took up the name and kept up the ruse. Diamond Dogs itself was a smoke screen to place all focus on Venom while the real Big Boss could lay the ground work for Outer Heaven.

After Outer Heaven's construction had been completed, Big Boss's reputation as a mercenary had traveled far and wide thanks to the activities of Venom Snake. While he knew that mercenaries around the world would eventually rally to his cause, he knew that it would also bring the attention of government agencies that would grow suspicious of his activities. Needing to draw attention away from Outer Heaven, Big Boss himself decided to return to the U.S. to rejoin FOXHOUND as its commander and left Venom Snake in charge. In 1995, Venom Snake began an uprising within Outer Heaven by the order of Big Boss to bring chaos to the Patriots, who had been growing without control in spite of their leader Zero falling into a vegetative state. Venom Snake managed to capture the first operative sent by Big Boss, codenamed Gray Fox. Big Boss then sent his least experienced agent, a rookie codenamed Solid Snake, who happened to be Big Boss's cloned son, with the objective of rescuing Fox and destroying Metal Gear. He also sent a tape labeled, "Operation Intrude N313," the name of Solid Snake's operation, to Venom Snake to make sure he was prepared. Despite all this, Solid Snake rescued Fox and destroyed the Metal Gear weapon known as TX-55 Metal Gear. Afterwards, Venom Snake intervened and revealed himself. The two fought with Solid Snake being the victor, killing Venom Snake. This led to the real Big Boss setting up the eventual Zanzibar Land Disturbance with the remnants of Outer Heaven.

Personality and traits
During the medic's days in MSF, Big Boss considered him the group's "best man." While impersonating Big Boss as Venom Snake, he adopted much of his commander's personality and possessed a similar physical appearance, having undergone hypnotherapy and plastic surgery. Following his escape from a Cypriot hospital and recovery from muscle atrophy, Venom Snake gained muscle mass similar to that of Big Boss.

As a result of wounds suffered during the destruction of MSF, Venom Snake had a piece of shrapnel embedded in his forehead in the shape of a horn, and had also lost his right eye and left arm, the latter was later replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic.

Like his mental and physical template, Venom Snake did show compassion for his enemies as he chose not to kill Quiet or Huey and instead had the former imprisoned and the latter exiled with food and water.

Venom Snake appeared to suffer from a form of amnesia (or more accurately, the memory transfer was not completed), as both Miller and Ocelot had to remind him of certain events, such as how the real Big Boss had led Militaires Sans Frontières and how Miller helped him lead "his" old unit. He also did not possess Big Boss's fluency in Russian, relying instead on a translator. Despite this, however, he did seem to remember events from the Peace Walker Incident, such as the prototype Battle Gear's similarity to Metal Gear ZEKE giving him déjà vu, and his quoting of Hot Coldman regarding the ineffectiveness of nuclear deterrence.When he asked why he's suffering from amnesia, Ocelot stated it might have to do with the shrapnel in his forehead, while on the Truth tapes, it's because they had to cut the memory transfer as XOF was set to attack ahead of schedule.

Behind the scenes
Punished "Venom" Snake is the main protagonist of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Although he is never called "Punished" in the game, it appears in the opening and end credits of nearly every main mission in the game. In The Phantom Pain, Venom Snake's name and facial appearance prior to surgery is determined by the player, despite the medic having predetermined, albeit obscured, facial features in Ground Zeroes.

It is heavily implied that Venom Snake himself (and his nondescript identity as a medic) serves as a deliberate player avatar, due to his original appearance being reliant on the player's decisions and how Big Boss addresses him in a manner that breaks the fourth wall.

The unidentified field medic appears during the closing cutscenes of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Because of the cinematic angles during the ending scenes in Ground Zeroes, there is never a clear view of the medic's face (he is shown to have white skin and brown hair but this is retconned in The Phantom Pain). However, the medic's full appearance has been seen in the PC version through the use of mods. A PC user extracted the facial model and textures for the medic and found that he shared identical scars to Big Boss. In The Phantom Pain, in the cutscene with a flashback to the events of Ground Zeroes, the field medic is shown wearing a balaclava.

On the Command Center menu, if the player looks closely at Venom Snake's reflection, it shows the avatar the player created, hinting at the plot-twist of Venom Snake not being Big Boss. In addition, a leaked Italian version of the Piggyback game guide for The Phantom Pain strongly implied Venom Snake's true identity is separate from Big Boss, although they never explicitly confirmed it due to Konami and at that time Kojima Productions specifically forbade them from giving any statements about Ishmael's identity. The GDC 2013 reveal trailer for The Phantom Pain had first hinted at his existence when Kazuhira Miller, after learning about Big Boss falling into a coma, asks "What about him?" before the scene cut away.

The plot twist of Snake not truly being Big Boss is hinted when he meets The Boss AI and Huey, as the AI states, "You're not Snake, are you?", and Huey notices a difference between the two. It was also hinted at when Ocelot explained that Eli was not Venom Snake's clone, and that the genetic examination of the two had resulted negative.

Fulfilling his role as a "phantom" of Big Boss, he returns as the final boss of the original Metal Gear via a retcon established in the ending timeline though the shrapnel in his head was removed and his prosthetic left arm was replaced by the game's events.

Venom Snake's alias as Ahab is a reference to the central character from the novel Moby-Dick; the same way that Big Boss's adopted identity as Ishmael is also derived from the main character of the novel.

Venom Snake being made to believe he is Big Boss via hypnotherapy is similar to Ocelot being led to believe he was Liquid.

According to Hideo Kojima's notes in the Piggyback Collector's Edition Guide's art gallery, Venom Snake (or rather, Big Boss as he is identified in the notes) losing his arm was decided early on in the project, and also implied that he was supposed to lose two fingers from his right hand as well. He also mentioned that the powerful prosthetic arm was implemented to allow players to appreciate the full intended experience, as while Snake could technically still wield weapons, it would have made it difficult to appreciate such.

Although the Truth ending reveals that Venom Snake is not Big Boss, his exact reaction to learning of this revelation is left ambiguous, as he briefly demonstrates a smirk as if accepting and embracing the role. After he flips the tape "From Man Who Sold the World", he sees Operation Intrude N313, which is the name of the mission in the original Metal Gear, implying a time skip occurs. In the next scene, Venom sees himself in the mirror with a bloody face and larger horn, before punching the mirror.

A hidden fourth ending of The Phantom Pain, which is unlocked if all worldwide FOB nukes are destroyed, addresses The Boss as Big Boss states the similar phrase from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: ''"We have no tomorrow, but there is still hope for the future." ''This may suggest a motive for why Big Boss decided to go through with the body double plan and work solo, away from everyone in Diamond Dogs.

Venom Snake's stats in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain are:
 * Combat Unit: A++
 * Research & Development Team: A++
 * Base Development Unit: A++
 * Support Unit: A++
 * Intel Team: A++
 * Medical Team: A++

Appearances

 * Metal Gear 
 * Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
 * Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain