Board Thread:Metal Gear Solid V/@comment-4913740-20140331092208/@comment-1672596-20140907182058

-NeroZero-BR wrote: MOB-4-Life wrote: 192.160.117.141 wrote: Hm, that "uneasy alliance" angle could really be on the money. We know that Ocelot was always on Big Boss's side, but he's supposed to nominally be working for Zero at this point. We know from trailers three things Ocelot will do in Phantom Pain:

1. Chill out with Big Boss in Afghanistan.

2. Get so involved in Diamond Dogs business that Miller (and maybe Big Boss) has him doing their interrogations.

3. Rescue Big Boss on horseback like a prince.

Ocelot is reckless as shit (his idea of helping you back in 1964 was to constantly try to shoot you), but this seems awfully helpful for someone who ought to care that it would blow some serious cover. Ocelot might be the uneasy alliance between Cipher and Diamond Dogs: Both former members of FOX are threatened by XOF, so Zero sends Ocelot to help Big Boss take them out. By the end of it, Zero thinks they've reconciled and gives Big Boss control over FOXHOUND, while Big Boss continues to secretly work against Zero with the development of Outer Heaven (hence what EVA says in MGS4: That Zero felt "betrayed" by Big Boss when he learned of the Outer Heaven uprising). The Patriots being all knowing will find out about his plan and initiate Operation Intrude N312/3 through their influence within the government by putting it around that Big Boss is a terrorist.

Just a problem there - it was never mentioned that the Patriots planned these ops. Both N312 and N313 were simply a result of the US government wanting to take down Metal Gear. Thing is, probably the Patriots never knew that Big Boss was behind Outer Heaven, since Zero himself only knew about that after Solid Snake escaped the fortress anyways. Gray Fox's infiltration could well have been a fake since the beginning. Remember that he had been loyal to Big Boss ever since God-knows-when and he was rescued by the Boss himself in the 80's (Better be in Phantom Pain or I'm going to beat you up with a fish, Kojima). I have no doubts that Gray Fox has always been one of Big Boss's men even during the FOXHOUND time. His "capture" could well have been a stroll around Outer Heaven while he safely sent off his final message, just waiting for any word about a new mission to rescue him so he could then play the prisoner role.

They never knew BB was the leader of Outer Heaven until Snake nailed him down. Zero could well still have been trusting him, however; who knows what Skull Face planned to do as of '84? If he tried to trick Cypher around and take their power and organization to himself, and Snake had prevented that, I imagine that Zero might have forgiven BB to some extent, while BB himself, deep down, had always plotted against Zero & Co. The Phantom Pain looks like a complex game of secrets and betrayal - the 2014 E3 trailer had a scene with BB alongside Skull Face; unharmed, all his weapons with him, not tied or threatened at gunpoint, nothing. Either if BB DID know about "Skully" being the man behind the SMF destruction or not, I think it's likely that he convinced BB that he was also an enemy to Cypher, at which point they'd become allies, and later on Skully might try to eliminate both Diamond Dogs and the Patriots, forcing BB to kill him or something. Either way, he would be seen as a hero by then and Zero could've thought that he had forgiven him.

It's so freakin' hard to make theories for games in-between the storyline... The main problem with your theory is that, aside from the amount of intelligence agencies and groups Cipher (the Patriots prior to the split) alone had under their thumb (NRO, CSS, DIA, NSA, possibly even the CIA and KGB, going by Peace Walker; the UN and IAEA as well as at least two media outlets, the MI6, BND, ISI, the United States Marine Corps unit on the United States Naval Prison Facility in Cuba, possibly at least one Russian intelligence facility besides the KGB, and the like in Ground Zeroes, and who knows how many groups by the 1980s in The Phantom Pain), Zero already knew by 1974 Big Boss's role in Outer Heaven (heck, he even tried to force him and MSF to rejoin the Patriots via Paz and was even going to go as far as to frame them for a nuclear attack on the East Coast if he hadn't, and it was also strongly implied in the ending that Zero may have indirectly manipulated XOF to attack MSF's mother base anyways and set Big Boss up to be subject to an international manhunt.). Your theory would have worked had MGS4's claim about Zero not knowing about Big Boss's role in Outer Heaven was kept, but the problem is going by the Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes, heck, especially Peace Walker, there's definitely no way Zero could not have known.