Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4913740-20130628164607/@comment-8245466-20130701031505

I believe that Skullface is the father of Psycho Mantis, and a former KGB agent, and that both he, Psycho Mantis, and Those Who Don't Exist are related to Project Omega. I believe that Cipher's research has always been along two lines- the creation of the proxy AIs headed by Donald Anderson and helped along by the work of Dr. Strangelove (who may or may not be working for Cipher), and the creation of super-soldiers through gene therapy and cybernetic enhancements headed by Dr. Clark.

Cipher needed to create a system capable of manipulating and controlling information and people, modeled after a human brain. These would be the proxy AIs. Before implementing the system on a worldwide scale, they needed to scale down their tests. Null and the rest of Gene's army, as well as the Genome army, were all susceptible to hypnotic suggestion and could have their memories and emotions erased. Cipher continued the Perfect Soldier program which produced the Genome Army, the Cyborg Ninja, the Beauty and the Beast unit, and SOP. The final test subject was Raiden, through the S3 plan, and Cipher's dreams were realized through SOP- total battlefield control, on the genetic and psychological level. From there, SOP could be implemented on a world wide scale.

The weird super-soldiers in MGS V are the result of Project Omega, Cipher's program to create cybernetically enhanced super-soldiers under the influence of Psycho Mantis. It is no surprise that Mantis was also influencing the Genome Soldiers under Liquid's command, or that he was really the one influencing Screaming Mantis and controlling the B&B unit.