Paz Ortega Andrade

Paz Ortega Andrade, also known as Pacifica Ocean, was a Cipher agent who infiltrated the Militaires Sans Frontières during the Peace Walker Incident in 1974.

Early life
Pacifica Ocean was raised in the United States from a very young age. She was taken in by the secretive Cipher organization after becoming an orphan, and felt that she owed them her life. However, her loyalty was partially born out of fear, as she believed that disobeying Cipher would result in "a fate far worse than death." She was also one of the few agents that had actually met Zero face-to-face and received orders from Zero directly (in this case, to contact Big Boss), with most other agents only gaining their orders via proxies. She was eventually trained to become a triple agent for the organization, later operating within both the CIA and the KGB.

With Cipher's resources, Pacifica adopted the identity of "Paz Ortega Andrade" (the name Paz meaning "Peace" in Spanish), a 16-year-old Costa Rican high school student who cherished peace and was studying the nation's Peace Constitution under the guidance of professor Ramón Gálvez Mena of the yet-to-be-sanctioned United Nations University for Peace. In reality, Gálvez was a fellow agent of the KGB with whom Pacifica was ostensibly serving the Latin American interests of the Soviet Union. Similar to her true past, "Paz" was also an orphan whose mother had died when she was still very young and had lost her grandparents during the Costa Rican Civil War, influencing her supposed passionate hatred of war.

In 1974, "Paz Ortega Andrade" was held captive by the CIA mercenary group Peace Sentinel, after she had stumbled upon a supply port facility north of Puerto Limon, while "searching for a lost friend." She later found out that her friend had also been captured, due to accidentally recording a conversation of The Boss AI on her Walkman while bird watching. Paz was eventually able to escape, although her friend did not make it out in the process. After she had shown Gálvez the tape, along with cuts apparently inflicted on her during captivity, she and the professor entreated the Militaires Sans Frontières and asked Naked Snake (Big Boss) and Kazuhira Miller to eliminate the armed force and restore peace to the nation. While MSF were conducting their missions, Paz hid at Ciudad Colon, a school where Gálvez told her she could stay until the conflict had settled down. Miller also rigged Snake's radio to allow contact with her while Paz herself was allowed by Galvez to utilize his radio in his room to contact the group.

Paz was later recaptured by Peace Sentinel leader Hot Coldman and was taken to a U.S. missile base in Nicaragua, where she was placed in a cell. She was later relocated to the control room where Coldman intended to launch a nuclear strike on MSF's Mother Base, via the unmanned Peace Walker weapon. Before he could do so, Professor Gálvez (in reality, a KGB spy name Vladimir Zadornov) stormed the facility with a squad of Soviet troops, betraying Coldman, with whom he had secretly been in league. Zadornov planned to have Peace Walker instead launch into Cuba to ruin America's reputation, and attempted to convince Paz to shoot Coldman with his Makarov pistol. However, despite Coldman's previous actions toward her, she could not bring herself to shoot him, so Zadornov pulled the trigger himself. Paz was soon rescued by the MSF and their Sandinista allies, while Zadornov and a dying Coldman were taken into their custody.

Paz later broke down into tears onboard Kaz's MSF chopper due to the intense events of the mission, with Kaz lecturing her that she shouldn't pick up a weapon unless she knew how to use it, as aiming a gun itself didn't make it a deterrent. Paz calmed down enough to thank the MSF for completing their mission. However, Coldman had successfully reinitiated Peace Walker's launch on his deathbed, forcing the MSF to destroy Peace Walker directly in a final battle to prevent all out nuclear war. After the fiasco, Paz returned to Costa Rica briefly, but ended up returning to Mother Base due to the fact that she couldn't attend school as Gálvez, who had funded her schooling, had been arrested by the MSF as well as due to the KGB's involvement in paying for her tuition. When Kaz brought this up to Big Boss, Big Boss agreed, although under the condition that Kaz watch over Paz as he felt it wouldn't be easy for her to adjust to the current environment. In addition, while on Mother Base, Paz also suggested to Big Boss that he supply her with a job, and suggested that he make her a cook, citing her decent cooking skills, as well as making Costa Rican recipes when she was used to the job.

During her time with MSF following the fiasco, Paz adopted a pet cat, which she named "Nuke." She also briefly participated in a soccer match and went fishing with Chico and some of the mercenaries. She also briefly came down with an illness while onboard Mother Base, with Miller and Strangelove trying to help her recover (although she drove them off due to Miller trying to demonstrate how to use suppositories as well as Strangelove trying to put an "Indian miracle cure" on Paz's chest, respectively). While she continued to play the role of an innocent student of peace, she secretly helped Zadornov to escape Mother Base's brig on multiple occasions, one of which involved luring a guard away by having him taste some of the food that she, Cécile, and Amanda cooked in the Mess Hall.

However, Paz came to realize that being with the MSF seemed more peaceful in her life, implying that she might have started respecting it, although she knew it wouldn't last much longer. She considered lying to Cipher about the progress of the modifications to Metal Gear ZEKE in order to enjoy "Peace Day," but another Cipher affiliate (whom Paz believed was an undercover agent) revealed her completion of the modifications before she had the chance. Chico also discovered her working on ZEKE, so she was forced to enact her plan.

After Big Boss killed Zadornov in self-defense following the KGB spy's final escape attempt, Pacifica Ocean hijacked Metal Gear ZEKE, much to the surprise of Big Boss and Miller. After explaining the history of Big Boss and Zero after The Boss's death and continuously referring to Cipher's plans to ultimately control weapons and humanity, she requested that Big Boss rejoin Cipher, or rather, obey the will of Cipher, promising to let him keep command of MSF as their deterrent until their new world order was in place. When Big Boss refused, however, Pacifica decided to do the other aspect of her orders: Pacifica had set the coordinates of ZEKE's launch strike towards the East Coast of the United States in an attempt to frame Big Boss and the Militaires Sans Frontières in being an extremist cult, forcing Big Boss to fight and defeat Pacifica and ZEKE. After declaring to Big Boss that his path is to experience fleeting peace, where people will use him, abuse him, then throw him away as if a cancer to society, Pacifica's body was thrown into the ocean from the force of ZEKE's explosion, with Big Boss only expressing remorse and pity for Paz as she fell. Big Boss also learned from Miller his role in Paz and Cipher's plans.

Following Pacifica's defeat, Snake told Chico that he had some doubts as to whether she had indeed died, due to her ejection from ZEKE's cockpit, and the fact that had still been in her scuba gear when she landed in the ocean. Before the fight, however, she left behind several tapes of her diary, causing them to suspect that Paz's loyalty to Cipher may have been wavering.

She also recorded some tapes documenting her actions prior to, during, and after joining MSF, including a report on Big Boss and Miller, as well as calls to Cipher.

Camp Omega
True to Big Boss's suspicions, Paz had indeed survived, and was later rescued by a Belizean fisherman. However, Cipher subsequently had her held for interrogation at Camp Omega, on the southern tip of Cuba, after becoming suspicious of her loyalty. In actuality, however, their leader, Skull Face, planned to interrogate Paz to find the location of Zero and kill him. This was done in an attempt to free himself, as Skull Face had been enslaved by Zero, and as Paz was the only one to had direct contact with Zero at the time of Cipher's "Grand Project." Zero had gone into hiding ever since, so Skull Face needed Paz to reveal Zero's location. Even though she learned that he wouldn't kill Zero for her, she nonetheless explained where Zero was, due to his willingness to aid Big Boss. During her imprisonment, Chico was also captured while trying to resuce Paz but their reunion was marred by Skull Face's brutal interrogation and torture methods.

Ten days after Paz's incarceration, Big Boss infiltrated the camp to rescue both her and Chico, in order to gather more intelligence on Cipher. While visiting Chico at the camp, Skull Face claimed to have oversaw the painless demise of a female prisoner, referring to Paz, as well as supplying Chico with a tape as "proof." By this time, Paz's hair had been cropped short as part of her interrogation, and she had been chained up by her hands in a room secured by a steel gate, and possibly raped. Chico, after being rescued by Big Boss, informed of Paz's apparent fate, though Big Boss was skeptical. He confiscated the tape depicting Paz's supposed last moments, and deduced her location from the sounds of the area. Paz was later located by Big Boss, deducing her location from the tape, placing her onboard the chopper. However, XOF had anticipated that Big Boss would find her, and implanted a bomb in her abdomen. Emergency surgery was carried out that removed the bomb, causing great distress and pain for the conscious Paz who fainted afterwards.

Paz eventually regained consciousness, and was interrogated by Miller (who was already irate at the XOF attack on Mother Base). During Miller's interrogation, Paz revealed that she was actually implanted with two bombs rather than one. She then sacrificed herself by jumping off the helicopter and exploded in midair, although it sent the chopper out of control. Skull Face later mused that Paz's sacrifice was pointless as America's complacency to the murder of immigrants and the killing of innocents was nonetheless exposed.

Personality and traits
As Paz, the woman known as Pacifica Ocean behaved in an innocent manner, and acted as a genuine lover and believer of the concept of peace. Secretly, however, she harbored no real belief in peace, due to man's violent nature. Pacifica was highly aware of her youthful appearance, as she intentionally posed as a teenager to play the convincing role of the "child of peace."

Unveiling her true allegiance to Cipher, Pacifica's true nature was significantly different and borderline sociopathic. She admitted that she was willing to cause harm on the Mother Base when hijacking ZEKE should Big Boss decide to retaliate against her. It was implied that this sociopathic behavior stemmed from fear of her bosses at Cipher subjecting her to a "fate worse than death" should she either fail or otherwise disobey her mission directives, as well as despair that her attempt at delaying her mission was exposed to Cipher.

Pacifica ultimately revealed that she only viewed the concept of peace as nothing but a mere fantasy. She believed that deterrence as a philosophy had become obsolete and that absolute control of warfare and information is the ultimate approach to achieving an illusion of "peace." Enacting Cipher's goal, she believed that the intelligence community would slowly be united within a world that is governed by electronics and through complete control of information. She was under the belief that Cipher will utimately watch over the world, guiding the will of the people and society, all while remaining undercover as the world remained blissfully unaware of Cipher's influence; essentially ruling the whole world under a single will. Pacifica's mentality of the world and desire for complete control of information through electronics was very much akin to that of the eventual role and influence of the Patriots' AIs. Much like her perception of how the world should be governed, the AIs would go on to abandon Zero's original intentions of carrying out The Boss's will, adopting this very same goal and perception of controlling society through its power and influence in the digital age.

As part of her mission, she had offered Big Boss to join Cipher in order to act as a messianic figure that would protect Cipher and its operations; acting as Cipher's deterrent. Unlike Zero, Pacifica held little reverence for Big Boss and was quick to accept Big Boss's refusal of her offer to enact Cipher's will and goal. Even as an agent of Cipher, didn't seem to view The Boss in a heroic manner as much as Zero and Big Boss did. This is evidenced by her description of Zero and Big Boss viewing The Boss as "their" hero, even properly recognizing the conflict and different interpretations of her will between the two despite only viewing Cipher's goal as the true path in uniting the world. After Big Boss's refusal to comply with Cipher's offer, Pacifica decided to defame and brand Big Boss and the rest of MSF as dangerous outlaws that would threaten the whole world through the launch of ZEKE. It is unknown if Pacifica was directly ordered by Zero to carry out such an alternative outcome in her mission, although she implied in her diary that she was indeed ordered to from at least Cipher, and that she felt it was extreme. In either case, it could be interpreted as a spiteful response on Cipher's part, and essentially Zero's as well, should Big Boss decide to refuse their offer. As such, in correlation with her disbelief towards the concept of true peace, she viewed the peace sign as a literal symbol of the letter "V" for "Victory", signifying her desire for absolute victory in accomplishing her goals.

Pacifica had an affinity for machines as she revealed to Big Boss during her hi-jacking of ZEKE. In addition, she was skilled at engineering and mechanic-related things, having single-handedly modified ZEKE to be pilotable and even going as far as to lock out the Mother Base control computer to prevent the Mother Base staff from shutting it down, although she kept it secret from the Mother Base staff until she hi-jacked ZEKE. She was trained in deep-sea scuba diving, presumably so she'd escape from Mother Base upon succeeding her mission. It was largely because of this that she ended up surviving her battle with Big Boss, something that Big Boss also suspected. She also may have been proficient with firearms and some form of combat training, as Chico described her as being "armed" when he accidentally stumbled upon her attempt at sabotaging ZEKE as well as when she compared herself to Strangelove whom she viewed as an "out-of-shape" woman that posed no threat to her.

Paz's hair possessed a perm.

Similar to her compatriots and Strangelove, Paz, or rather, Pacifica, was a tobacco user, although she primarily used snuff tobacco during her mission. Presumably to maintain her cover as an innocent lover of peace while at the same time alleviating her addiction, something she implied that she was disgusted with. She used the variety of snuff where she puts a pouch of tobacco leaf directly inside her lip for it to absorb, and it was because of this that her Paz identity often had a quirk where she placed her index finger on her upper lip, which was actually a means to keep her snuff in position and prevent it from falling out as she wasn't used to it, something that Snake and Miller recalled shortly after her defeat.

Paz was also familiar with the Les Enfants Terribles project and the resulting clone children's role of safeguarding Cipher's "governance without borders," reminding Zero about his raising them for that purpose during one of her communications with Cipher.

Name
Pacifica Ocean is a pun of the name "Pacific Ocean," the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Pacific itself is derived from pax, which is Latin for "peace." The Latin word eventually became the Spanish and Portuguese word paz.

Character
Paz's English voice actress (Tara Strong) also voiced Elisa and Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Coincidentally, Zadornov (Paz's partner) is voiced by Steven Blum, who also voiced Elisa and Ursula's accomplice in Portable Ops, and both characters end up fighting Big Boss while inside a Metal Gear.

Although Paz herself was a Cipher agent, her choice of words when revealing her true self (i.e., referring to Cipher as being "our leaders") left it ambiguous as to whether her co-conspirator, Zadornov, was a Cipher agent like herself, or whether she had simply used Zadornov via their common affiliation with the KGB.

Paz's character song, "Koi no Yokushiryoku," is included on the "Heavens Divide" single. Kojima Productions broadcast it on air in Hideochannel Radio on February 18, 2010.

According to conceptual storyboards included in the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Official Art Works book, Paz and Zadornov were intended to be directly involved in Peace Walker's development, and they were to talk in a room while Big Boss was listening in from an adjoining window (mirroring how Solid Snake eavesdrops on Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot in the climax of Metal Gear Solid) before Big Boss ends up being caught and surrounded by Hot Coldman and his Peace Sentinel soldiers. In addition, Paz was also intended to shoot Zadornov in the head before proceeding to hijack ZEKE. Likewise, various character concept designs for Paz revealed that she had various designs that were ultimately not included in the game, including a gray version of her dress with a badge-like emblem and a green mini-tie that is presumably her high school uniform, as well as her underwear model with her wearing a H-Chest Harness on her person, either implying that she was originally considered to be fought in-person in addition to fighting her while she was piloting ZEKE, or a reference to Chico's claim about her being armed when stating he couldn't stop her in one of the briefing tapes. The design used in the game was also not her final design, with two other elected designs being her with longer dress, shorter boots, a combat harness, and gloves, and a radically different design depicting her with short hair (similar in hair-style to Para-Medic) and long pants with suspenders. Also, one of the concept arts also implied that, in addition to being accompanied by Zadornov, Paz would have also been accompanied by a bespectacled woman wearing pants with suspenders when requesting that Snake participate in their mission in Costa Rica.

Paz's hinted at survival in Peace Walker was later confirmed in the PAX Prime 2012 trailer and demo for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (then titled Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes), where she alongside Chico are detained at Camp Omega, with Big Boss infiltrating the facility himself to rescue them. She later appeared in the Red Band trailer for E3 2013, although she was not identified as her directly, only being identified in one of the KP alerts, which also confirmed that the device Big Boss and Chico were removing from her was a bomb. This scene was censored in the Japanese version, with Hideo Kojima being unhappy with it, as it was intended to mirror a certain scene from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

Mother Base Staff
"My name is Paz, and I'll do anything to protect my namesake."

- Paz's character quote on her staff menu on the Mother Base menu.

Paz is a unique staff member at Mother Base, available after completing Chapter 4. She asks Snake to let help at Mother Base as she has nowhere else to go. Her skill ("Home Cooking") increases morale of all MSF staff when she is assigned to the Mess Hall Team. Her job is High School Student.


 * Life: 3000
 * Psyche: 7000
 * GMP: 4500


 * Combat Unit: -
 * Shoot: -
 * Reload: -
 * Throw: -
 * Place: -
 * Walk Speed: -
 * Run Speed: -
 * Fight: -
 * Defense: -
 * R&D Team: D (Note, sometimes it appears as a "-")
 * Mess Hall Team: A
 * Medical Team: B
 * Intel Team: A

Even after Big Boss defeats her in the fight against ZEKE, for gameplay purposes, Paz remains as a soldier in MSF and her credentials/bio can still be viewed under the personnel section of the Mother Base menu. The "Date with Paz" mission as well as the ZEKE boss fight mission also remains playable.

"A young Costa Rican girl who cherishes peace. She is studying the nation's Peace Constitution under the guidance of Professor Galvez at the yet-to-be-sanctioned United Nations University of Peace. She was held captive by the mysterious armed force initiating military deployment in various parts of Costa Rica. She, alongside Galvez, entreats MSF to eliminate the armed force and restore peace to the nation. Her name, Paz, means peace in Spanish."

- Paz's bio description on Mother Base's model viewer in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Paz's Diary
The AI Weapons in Extra Ops have Paz's Diary tapes in their pods, much like how they had Strangelove's Memories tapes in Main Ops. The only difference in finding them is that they're in a different spot than in Main Ops. Pupa type II: between B & C, Pupa Custom: between C & D, Chrysalis type II: between C & D, Chrysalis Custom: between D & A, Cocoon type II: between D & A, Cocoon Custom: between A & B, Peace Walker type II: between A & B, Peace Walker Custom: between B & C. These tapes can't be viewed until you complete the ZEKE battle in Main Ops. It is also to be noted that these tapes are the only ones where one of the characters actually reacts to their presence inside the AI pod (Kazuhira Miller, when a tape is retrieved from the AI pod, will say "Hm? What's a tape doing in there?"). The tapes cover her stay at Mother Base from her point of view, as well as elaborate a bit on her and Ciphers' plans as well as her motivations for attempting to hijack ZEKE. Listening to all of the tapes in Paz's Diary also results in another briefing tape with Chico being unlocked, regarding Paz's questionable survival and deducing the reason why Paz delayed trying to attack Big Boss despite being loyal to Cipher. Some of the diary tapes were later implemented into the cassette tapes throughout Ground Zeroes.

Date Paz
After the events of Chapter 4, an Extra Ops mission (67th overall) called "Date with Paz" is unlocked. Due to the humorous nature of the mission, along with Paz declaring twice in her diary that "she has no interest in that man," not all aspects are likely to be canon.

In the mission, Snake is the only playable character. The context of the mission requires that the player use the CO-OPs COMM to "talk" to her. Depending on the phrases spoken and their appropriateness, her affinity will either be bolstered (shown by a speech bubble with a red heart), will be skeptical at the remark (look confused), or her affinity will be lowered (depicted with a blue heart with a tear on it). Also, overuse of the phrases will eventually lead to the affinity being lowered. To end the mission, use a Love Box, or any Cardboard box, and equip it. Paz will then ask "room for one more?" and enter, with it shaking and Paz giggling. In addition, the ending rank will depend on the current height of the affinity meter. In addition, Paz will react by moving around, causing her skirt to sway, if the player uses the camera on her. Playing Koi no Yokushiryoku on the Walkman will also have Paz dance. Paz will react if the player places a magazine near her. A certain CO-OPs COMM Battle Cry effect ("Time to say 'Good Night!!!'") will also have Paz fall asleep. Doing this will also allow the player the opportunity to search her to find a design spec relating to the Psyche Recovery variation of the EZ gun. In addition, if the player uses the Codec while doing this, the rest of the main characters will call Snake. If the player uses either the Naked Camo or the Swim Trunks for the Date with Paz mission, Paz will run away (and in the case of the Naked Camo, make a remark before doing so). Using CQC is not advised, as it will then turn into a grope, causing Paz to slap Snake in the face and cause her affinity to go down (although if the player grabs her from behind while she is in her underwear in replays of the mission after achieving an S-rank, they can perform CQC and also interrogate her). In addition, attacking Paz even once ends with an automatic mission failure (which is depicted with Paz storming away, and Snake, during the game over sequence, attempting to apologize to Paz in the Game Over style). Causing her affinity to deplete completely also results in a mission failure. When the affinity meter is filled, Paz will start jumping up and down. S-ranking the mission will land the player with Amanda's outfit as a usable uniform, and in addition, will result in Paz wearing only her underwear in subsequent replays of the mission.

Other appearances


Paz's only other appearance is in the android/iOS card game Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops, where she acts as several cards.

Appearances

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

Other Appearances
Paz appeared in the Versus Battle section on the official series website.

WEAKNESSES: Can She Truly be Trusted? FEATURED FACT: Originally known as Pacifica Ocean, Paz adopted her name (which is Spanish for “Peace”) as part of her triple agent cover FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION ''"
 * "''STRENGTHS: Triple Agent Hot, Cat named “Nuke”
 * -Paz on Versus Battle.

Notes and references
Paz Ortega Andrade