Goodluck

Chris, also known as Goodluck, was a member of Wardenclyffe Section, a secret research organization of the United States Federal Government that was dedicated to the investigation of several mysterious infectious organisms. Prior to joining Wardenclyffe, however, he had formerly been one of the castaways within Dite.

Biography

In 1980, he was caught in a wormhole and sent to Dite. At some point afterward, he somehow managed to find equipment and dispatch a distress signal, though he didn't say anything. Miranda, suspecting it was another survivor, went off to find the source of the transmission, and ultimately found him. He ultimately was rescued by the Captain, and later joined forces with him as well as the former XOF member Reeve, the nurse Miranda, the cop Nicholas, and the Charon Corps survivor Dan in an attempt to get them all back to their world. He ultimately was successful in getting back to his world, but he met an unexpected setback: Instead of arriving back at his time, he ended up sent to Philadelphia in 1943 above the USS Eldridge. Afterwards, fully intending to fulfill his end of the bargain for the other castaways, he ultimately became one of the chief researchers at Wardenclyffe Section, being responsible for various breakthroughs in wormhole technology. He also predicted that the next wormhole to emerge was during a battle between MSF and XOF. During his time as chief researcher, he also included voice recordings on Virgil AT-9, the AI that was assigned to the Charon Corps, anticipating that he'll ultimately die before he could fulfill his promise in getting them back, also realizing that the Lord of Dust needed to be stopped.

True to his predictions, a wormhole did in fact emerge shortly after the Ground Zeroes Incident. Days later, after the MSF survivors assessed the situation with the United Nations, he personally arrived to find the Captain in a casket. He then told the Captain (who was comatose) to "forgive [him]" for what he's about to do to them. He then put a photograph of the Captain inside the casket, as well as a tracer to recover them. He then tried to convince his boss, Joseph Gruen, to send the Captain into Dite to stop the Wanderers.

In September 1975, six months after the events of the Ground Zeroes Incident, he served as the handler for a surviving Mother Base soldier who had been newly-recruited into their organization. He sent the soldier through a wormhole to synthesize a cure for the organisms and rescue those who had been pulled into the various wormholes six months earlier. Goodluck informed the soldier that they couldn't back out of the mission because they had already been infected during their encounter at Mother Base. He then sent them through the wormhole, both to find a cure for the Wanderers, and also to find any possible survivors of Charon Corps. However, he did this without Gruen's permission, which ultimately resulted in his being unable to maintain contact with the Captain and Reeve for most of the mission. Ultimately, before the survivors' second try with a wormhole, he committed suicide, with him admitting in his message afterward that he's most likely going to go to purgatory.

Altered timeline

After the Lord of Dust was defeated by the castaways, Goodluck was told off by Gruen with his "mistake" regarding the next wormhole occurring as a result of the Ground Zeroes Incident. He then deduced after Gruen left that the survivors had defeated the Lord of Dust and changed history, though he still vowed to make sure he could bring them back to their planet.

Personality and traits

Chris, and later, "Goodluck", was known to be a fan of the Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri, due to quoting lines and naming things (e.g. Beatrice, Virgil, Charon, Dite) after characters and a city from the poem.^[1] He also held some religious views, as when first meeting Miranda and Reeve, he initially wondered if he had died and gone to heaven, before remembering heaven was unlikely to house monsters, and later in his penultimate recording, he mentions that he's "on his way to purgatory" by the time Virgil played the message. As a child, he was left disabled by an unnamed disease that was expected to kill him by the age of 20 and necessitated the use of a wheelchair, although by the time he became an adult, he managed to learn how to walk and was cured of his disease. He was also very loyal to his fellow castaways, and had fully intended to aid them in escaping Dite, although he ultimately was unable to fulfill his end of the bargain before his initial death.

Behind the scenes

Goodluck is a major character who appears in the spin-off game Metal Gear Survive, acting as the main character's handler.^[2]

In the event missions for the game's flavor text, it is implied that Goodluck is the one who gives the Event Missions in question behind Joseph Gruen's back.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} In the December 4, 2018 reissue of The Encounter - 2014 event, some of the prizes include antique coins formerly owned by Goodluck that were embedded with a special microchip called Obols, and were to be used to craft various special items and/or convert materials.^[8]

Him being warped to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943 in the climax of the game is a reference to the Philadelphia Experiment.

Notes and references