| This article is about a non-canonical topic in the Metal Gear series. |
Virgil AT-9 was a stand-alone operational support program developed by Goodluck, who serve as support AI for the Charon Corps, and later for the Captain, on Dite.
Biography[]
An AI pod that aided an unnamed Mother Base survivor from the Ground Zeroes Incident as well as a former XOF member named Reeve during their mission in an alternate dimension. A former property of Charon Corps, it was shut down sometime prior to the Captain and Reeve's arrival at Base Camp. As a result of the emergency shutdown due to infection by Dread Dust (implied to be from Seth), the AI pod had two differing personas, one female, and one male, with the one speaking depending on the color of its light (red for female, blue for male), with the female being the original program and the male often serving to ground her back to reality when damage to her hardware caused her to glitch. It detected any wormhole locations nearby as well as any motherboards left over from Charon Corps, and also acted as the mission controller for the events in Dite after Goodluck's role as controller was terminated as a result of the head of the Wardenclyffe Section, Joseph Gruen.
After narrowly escaping from the Lord of Dust in its unexpected arrival, Virgil AT-9 produced a pre-recorded, post-humous message from then-deceased Wardenclyffe researcher Goodluck, where he admitted that he wanted them to destroy the Lord of Dust first, and revealed that Gruen's earlier orders to overclock the Wormhole Driller were to call forth the Lord of Dust to harness as a power source. It also reunited with Seth, although because of its memory loss, it didn't remember him. It later ended up coming with Seth under the threat that Seth kill Chris if it didn't. Seth then ended up bonding the Dread Dust inside Virgil again and reinfecting it before ultimately being killed by Reeve and the Captain. As a result of this infection, it regained its memory and revealed that Dite was not merely an alternate dimension, but in fact Earth of the 22nd century, and that the Lord of Dust, and by extension, the Wanderer Creatures, were the byproducts of overproduced medical nanomachines, also having 12 days left before itself and the Captain succumbed to their infection, plus coming up with a plan to fall one day short of total infection for stopping the Lord of the Dust (as that one, due to it still being in its infancy, was weaker than the other timeline counterparts). After an initial attempt at stopping the Lord of the Dust failed due to the regenerative factor from its nanomachines, Virgil, after playing a second pre-recorded message from Goodluck which revealed that he was in fact Chris (who had been sent back in time beforehand), revealed that they had one final plan to stop the Lord of Dust: Specifically, it would need to merge with the creature and directly teach the creature about death (as, being nanomachine clusters, the Lord of the Dust had no concept of it), thus weakening it enough to be destroyed by Sahelanthropus's railgun, also using itself as a targeting reticle to ensure it worked. It worked, with the Dread Dust being eradicated. Virgil AT-9 itself, however, survived due to its casing being reinforced to such an extent that it could survive nuclear war (similar to The Boss AI), and due to the Death Dust being eradicated, it was restored to its original personality in full.
Capabilities[]
Since it was meant to aid the Charon Corps in its mission on Dite, it gathered various information, and could also detect wormhole singularities. It also was capable of identifying people via names stored in its databanks. It also had some awareness of idioms, although because of it undergoing emergency shutdown procedures due to prior infection with the Dread Dust, the female half often botched various idioms by conflating two unrelated idioms together, necessitating its male half, and in one case, Miranda, to correct her. It also could play back stored audio files from various users, including Goodluck, although the latter was implied to be unknown even to it. It could also be hooked up to the iDroid and access memory boards, and could also access files remotely.
Aside from the above, like The Boss AI, the AI pod's shell was heavily reinforced to withstand a nuclear bomb. This ultimately allowed it to survive an otherwise fatal direct hit from a rail gun in a self-sacrificing gesture to stop the Lord of Dust, with the only damage being cosmetic (leaving a dent to the shell).
Designation[]
Virgil AT-9 is named after the Roman poet Virgil who guided Italian poet Dante Alighieri through Hell and Purgatory in the Divine Comedy. In addition, Goodluck once referred to Virgil as "Beatrice", Dante's guide through Heaven in the poem.
Behind the scenes[]
Virgil AT-9 (ヴァージル AT-9) is a character who appears in Metal Gear Survive. It was first seen in the 5 minute gameplay trailer for the game, and was identified in a leaked gameplay video for the game.[1]
Virgil AT-9 shares its character model with The Boss's AI Pod from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The model is updated with less rust and decay removed from the shell. Owing to the similarities, in the good ending, Virgil AT-9 attributes its survival from its earlier sacrifice to allow the Captain to destroy the Lord of Dust to it possessing reinforced armor, indirectly alluding to The Boss AI's reinforced shell from the climax for Peace Walker.
Appearances[]
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