Outer Heaven (South Africa)
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It starts with this little tidbit seen in the timeline at the end of Ground Zeroes:
This site exists in real life. It’s called Vastrap.
• Some context: South Africa’s nuclear program only existed to basically strongarm the United States into resolving their conflicts with Eastern (Communist) Bloc nations; primarily, in the event the Border War in Namibia spilled over into South Africa proper. Despite never intending to actually use their nukes, they had a purpose. Without a site to develop and test them, and with the international condemnation that came with the 1979 Vela Incident, South Africa was between a rock and a hard place.
• Enter Skull Face and XOF.
Sometime following Vela, Skull Face takes advantage of the situation by offering a deal with the government: allow XOF, under the guise of “South African Natural Resources,” to occupy Vastrap and use it to develop and test their parasite research, in exchange for acting as the country’s anticommunist deterrent and apartheid enforcer. Despite being a signatory of the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention, South Africa was desperate for a deterrent, and agreed.
• This status quo would remain in place until Skull Face’s death in 1984. With it, XOF would rapidly lose their grip on Afghanistan and Central Africa. Vastrap would become their new HQ, a hideout to lay low. The soldiers seen ambushing Eli in the cut Mission 51 would have been deployed from Vastrap.
According to my theorizing, Chapter 3 of MGSV would’ve shown how Diamond Dogs would become Outer Heaven.
• The real Big Boss relays intel to Ocelot about XOF’s Vastrap hideout, and also that he (Ishmael) forged a new deal with South Africa to have Diamond Dogs wipe XOF out, capture the desert test site for themselves, and take over their contract. So, Diamond Dogs launches a full-scale invasion and succeeds. When clearing the underground tunnels, which XOF would have expanded greatly, Venom and Ocelot discover that XOF hired a new scientist to replace Huey: Dr. Drago Pettrovich Mandar.
He was being forced to create a new Metal Gear to replace Sahelanthropus - one far simpler and cheaper to construct, use, and maintain. Intrigued by this, and knowing Sally was a paper tiger at best and a liability at worst, Venom and Ocelot agree to have Madnar continue his work under them, with full access to Huey’s old lab and everything he left behind when he was kicked out.
• Under orders from “Ishmael,” Vastrap becomes the new Mother Base of Diamond Dogs - Outer Heaven.
Meanwhile, the Seychelles facility is relegated to being just a FOB, with its important facilities and assets moved to the mainland. Kaz Miller is infuriated by this, seeing as he raised up DD from basically nothing and now everything he built up was just being tossed aside; he eventually leaves for early retirement.
• Once settled in, a cover story is published to the world about Big Boss supposedly retiring from mercenary work to rejoin FOXHOUND. Ocelot departs to help Big Boss in this endeavor and also round up highly skilled mercenaries to act as “Ahab’s” right-hand men. Venom takes a break from being a body double, and is now just himself, though he hides from public eye since he might need to take up the mantle again in the future…
• Outer Heaven quickly becomes a force to be reckoned with. After rescuing a local architectural engineer named Kyle Schneider from rogue XOF remnants, they have him lead the efforts to expand the place into a true fortress.
• Madnar reverse-engineers Huey’s Walker Gear concept, making it much bigger, with a closed cockpit, and nuclear-equipped. TX-55 is born.
Note the vague similarities to Walker Gear, such as the head shape.
• Dr. Madnar proposes an idea to use special robotic surgical instruments, combined with prototype nanomachine injections, to conduct an operation to finally remove Venom Snake’s shrapnel horn without causing a brain hemorrhage. Venom agrees to it, and it is a success.
Note: this image was supposedly extracted from MGSV’s files, showing an aged Venom Snake without the horn. You can faintly see a scar on the forehead where it would be.
But the nanomachines are early prototypes, with side effects not being immediately clear. They end up manifesting in “Ahab’s” personality doing a complete 180; he becomes sadistic and downright evil, embracing his public persona as a “demon.” Madnar and Schneider grow to dislike working under him. Venom begins concealing his face by wearing a devilish masquerade mask with a single horn where the shrapnel used to be.
Venom also begins acting erratically, and not in line with Big Boss’s original plans. BB tries to resolve this diplomatically, but the nanomachines just seem to make Venom worse and worse.
• In 1995, South Africa - now under a new government - agrees to the UN’s demands (in the MG universe) to completely shut down their nuclear weapons programs and make the creation or storage of them anywhere within their borders illegal. In response to this, Venom Snake has Outer Heaven declare independence from the country, becoming the world’s first “mercenary republic,” with plans to launch an insurrection against Cipher. This draws the suspicions and fears of the outside world. The United Nations Security Council demands that a stealth operations unit investigate. The United States selects FOXHOUND for the job. Big Boss secretly decides to have Venom Snake be assassinated so he can quietly take the reins of Outer Heaven himself. He dispatches Gray Fox to accomplish this, but he’s captured. Desperate, Big Boss selects his top performing rookie, Solid Snake, for Operation Intrude N313.
And the rest is history…
If you’ve read this far, congrats! Sorry for such a long post, but I’ve been itching to get this out there somewhere haha.
I’ve been doing some research on real-life-lore in South Africa in the late 80’s and early 90’s up to 1995 when the OH Uprising occurs, and I found out that that time period was not only when Apartheid was coming to an end, but also when the country began dismantling its nukes and ending its nuclear weapons program, a process which started in 1989. I wonder if this occurring caused OH to declare independence so they could still keep their Metal Gear or something?
Plus SA was doing nuclear tests underground in the Kalahari Desert in the northwest of the country. Some people think OH was built in one of those sites, and it of course is based in a desert with lots of underground facilities. Just food for thought.