application for towerofanimus

[liquidouroboros]

Player Information

Name: Nao
Personal Journal: scribblenautics
Age: 22
Contact Info: [AIM] f0xh0undvix3n, [plurk] lollichop
Other Characters Played: Labrys

Character Information

Character Name: Liquid Snake
Character Series: Metal Gear Solid
Character Age: 37
Character Gender: Male

Alternate Universe

Canon Point: Early in the Plant chapter of MGS2; shortly before Raiden's fight against Fatman.

AU Background: It all began with Naked Snake. 'Big Boss', as he was eventually known, was the greatest soldier ever to live. His accomplishments and skill were unlike any who came before...and would surely excel the accomplishments of any that came after him. It was with this knowledge in mind that an organization called The Patriots (Ocelot, Dr. Clark, Major Zero, EVA, and Donald Anderson as well as Big Boss himself) cloned the soldier initially without his knowledge and against his will. This was the Les Enfants Terribles project, and the beginning of Liquid and Solid Snake.

Using genetic modification that makes no sense in the real world, the genes that made their father the exemplary soldier he was were isolated. One twin was given the dominant genes, the other was created with the recessive (in Liquid's own words, 'inferior garbage' and 'leftovers). Liquid was led to believe for the majority of his life that he was made to be inferior and less than his twin brother when in fact the inverse was true; Liquid was the dominant twin and Solid the recessive. yes I know genetics don't work that way, I swear I am quoting canon here

As he grew up in the United Kingdom separate from his brother who had no awareness of his existence, Liquid developed a hatred of the perfectly superior father and brother he never actually knew. He grew bitter and spiteful, determined to excel in every single thing he did to gain approval and prove himself more than the discarded failure he was convinced that he was. He mastered seven languages, became an incredibly skilled pilot of land, sea, and air vehicles, and was generally good at everything a soldier could ever be asked to do. At eighteen he was part of both the Special Air Service and the Special Intelligence Service--shortly after, he was sent to Iraq during the Gulf War, where he was eventually captured as a prisoner of war from 1990 to 1994.

In 1995, after being liberated and returning to the United States, he learned of his father's death at the hands of Solid Snake in Zanzibar Land. This enraged and frustrated Liquid, who believed that Big Boss had willingly been part of the Les Enfants Terribles project and thought he had knowingly chosen Liquid to be the lesser of the twins. He had sincerely wanted to be the one to kill their father in order to prove his superiority without a doubt, but having that stolen from him only made him grow to resent Solid Snake even more.

Five years later, after Snake's retirement, Liquid assumed control of FOXHOUND--the military unit his father had created. He reorganized it to be an elite unit of soldiers under his leadership, each with their own codename: Revolver Ocelot, Sniper Wolf, Psycho Mantis, Vulcan Raven, and Decoy Octopus.

Five years after that is when things start to go off the rails from canon. 2005, on an island in the Fox Archipelago off the coast of Alaska, a nuclear disposal site known as Shadow Moses Island was to be the test site for a new form of Metal Gear, known as Metal Gear REX. Liquid, Ocelot, Wolf, Mantis, Raven, and Octopus were sent with a group of lower-ranking soldiers to act as security for this top-secret project; a job Liquid couldn't help but be immensely bored with. Paperwork, assigning security details...he got a remarkably nice office out of the deal, at least. But Liquid was curious about this glorious and powerful 'Metal Gear' he'd heard so much about. To Liquid it was his father's pet project in a way, and he had to admit the idea of 'a giant nuclear robot' was kind of an intriguing one.

Curiosity led him to spend a fair amount of his spare time hovering over the shoulder of REX's chief engineer, Hal Emmerich. Through that interaction as well as seeing the constructed weapon itself, he learned a great deal about his specifications. When they needed a test pilot to check that things were in working order, Liquid was the obvious choice. It was a beautiful machine, built for warfare and perfect in every way. As someone with an affinity for both weaponry and vehicles, Liquid had a clear admiration for Metal Gear REX; it was better than its predecessors. Just like Liquid himself wanted to be.

It was about two weeks after their initial arrival on Shadow Moses, when REX was on the verge of being one hundred percent operational, that things went wrong. As it turned out, Liquid knew remarkably little about the situation at hand. He didn't know his twin brother had not realized Big Boss was his father until the day he'd been forced to kill him in order to stop Outer Heaven from becoming reality. He didn't know that something broke in Solid Snake that day, something that had cracked in 1995 and slowly fallen to pieces over the following ten years in solitude--solitude in Alaska. He had spent all that time wondering 'what if things turned out differently', 'what if Big Boss was right' and eventually coming to the conclusion that soldiers didn't belong anywhere but Outer Heaven. And since Solid himself had stopped that with his own hands, he'd see to it that his father's legacy reached completion.

But most importantly, Liquid had no idea Solid Snake had become aware of Liquid's existence as well as that of Metal Gear REX, and he was utterly unaware his severely damaged brother was damn well going to make sure their father's ruined dream became reality.

How Solid got in contact with Liquid's immediate subordinates was something Liquid never discovered for certain. Nanocommunication technology, probably--he'd never really bothered figuring out how that worked. What mattered was what Snake offered them. Ocelot and Wolf had known the twin Snakes' father firsthand, and their unwavering loyalty made it simple to convince them to follow the 'chosen' son of Big Boss in founding the deceased soldier's dream. (Or Ocelot was just looking for someone to backstab.) Raven? Much the same as the first two, but with more cryptic metaphors about light against dark and fate playing out to its conclusion. Mantis was even easier--being two steps short of a homicidal maniac, he was interested in the path of most bloodshed. With Mantis came the rest of the lower-ranked soldiers, thanks to the telepath's psychic manipulation. And Octopus...well, no one ever really knew what Octopus was thinking, and he went along with the course of things as he often seemed to.

That only left Liquid. Revolver Ocelot, eternal double-crosser, shot his commanding officer in the back on the night of February 22nd, 2005. Over the course of that night, Snake (mainly working with Ocelot) held the world for ransom and fully planned to establish his father's Outer Heaven then and there much as Liquid did in canon. But Ocelot made a mistake in shooting Liquid, as the (former) commander would later state clearly: 'That fool of a traitor didn't shoot me in the head'. One bullet was next to nothing for one of les enfants terribles, and now Snake and FOXHOUND had a very, very angry soldier sneaking around their base.

Over the course of the night he was contacted by those who had known Snake best; his former FOXHOUND superiors Roy Campbell and McDonell Miller. They kept him updated on the situation and made it considerably clear that he was the only one remotely skilled enough to dispatch FOXHOUND as well as Snake before they caused nuclear warfare on an international scale. While playing the hero wasn't something Liquid was thrilled about, the idea of getting revenge on his traitorous subordinates and his despised brother was only too perfect.

As the night wore on Liquid found himself with two allies on the island itself: one was Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich, the engineer responsible for REX who would rather have seen it destroyed completely than used for anything but defense. The second was Meryl Silverburgh, the last FOXHOUND soldier still loyal to her commander. The two of them were the only tangible connections keeping Liquid focused on strategy rather than tear through the entire base and kill every soldier out of sheer rage and hatred. He couldn't stand that he had been betrayed at all, much more so knowing that they had turned to his oh-so-perfect brother at the slightest indication. Meryl's ill-timed interest in her former commander's dedication and (lack of a) personal life as well as Otacon's generally friendly nature made the two of them the first real associates he had outside of the Patriots and the military. Some would call that having friends, if Liquid knew anything about the concept.

During his repeated confrontations with FOXHOUND and Snake over the course of the night, eventually the unit (save for Ocelot and Snake himself) were wiped out at Liquid's hands. But it wasn't a simple thing, and it came at a price. Meryl was killed by Sniper Wolf; an action which only served to make Liquid's cracked psyche break even further. The last soldier on the island to follow him instead of his brother, and Liquid believed he'd sinply let her die. His inferiority complex struck in full force, the soldier momentarily snapping into a mentality of 'if I wasn't created as worthless, none of this would have happened'. But he refocused his priorities with help from Otacon; if they lived through this night, nothing else would matter. Liquid would be the best in the world, as he believed he deserved to be.

Metal Gear REX was used by Snake in one of several last-ditch attempts to defeat the former commander, but with support from Otacon, Liquid was able to disable it and emerge victorious. It was after several more encounters in a very short time frame that Liquid was at last able to defeat his brother decisively; with spite in his heart and all he had gained in his life utterly ruined, there were no regrets as he ended his brother's life with one final shot.

In the months that followed, Liquid found himself without a purpose. His hatred for Snake and their father had driven him for thirty-three years of life, and with that having been brought to a conclusion he had nothing. No FOXHOUND, no battle to fight, and therefore no purpose. He returned to England under the name 'James Moriarty' and lived in solitude much as Snake had done. Except that he was without guilt as his twin had once been, and thus had nothing to drive him further off the deep end save for his own boredom.

Keeping in written correspondence with Otacon ever since the Shadow Moses incident, eventually Liquid would learn that Ocelot (the only member of FOXHOUND to survive and escape) had sold REX's blueprints on the black market. Half-formed derivatives were being assembled by various groups across the country, and someone obviously had to put a stop to it. Some great and spectacular soldier, with the ability and strength to accomplish even the impossible.

Liquid would rediscover a purpose for living in a half-crazed idea and a single word repeated several times throughout their correspondence: 'Philanthropy'. This word came to hold a great deal of significance to them; it was the name of the anti-Metal Gear NGO formed by Otacon and Liquid, backed and supported by a small handful of individuals tangentially related to the incident on Shadow Moses. Together the two of them journeyed around the country, Otacon serving as radio contact as Liquid entered various compounds as a stealth operative and sabotaged dozens of Metal Gear derivatives to render them useless. This lasted two years, until the infiltration of the USS Discovery. The object was for Liquid to secure photographic evidence of the Marines' new Metal Gear RAY so Philanthropy could publicize its existence. However, a group of Russian mercenaries arrived at the same time as Liquid and took over the tanker first. While they got the photographs they needed, Ocelot made an appearance shortly after and commandeered RAY, sinking the tanker and framing Philanthropy for what was recognized as an act of environmental terrorism.

Barely able to escape the sinking ship and knocked unconscious in the attempt, Liquid next found himself in a foreign shallow river. Thoroughly confused and unable to reach Otacon through codec, he met with a surreal encounter with a soldier calling himself The Sorrow. With nowhere to go but forward and the only other person around giving nothing but cryptic statements about life and death, Liquid encountered the spectral forms of countless soldiers he had killed, up to and including FOXHOUND and even his own brother. Much to his surprise, at the same moment he reached the end of the river Liquid woke up to a frantic Otacon hovering over him. by all appearances none of it had transpired at all, and for years afterward he never spoke of the Sorrow's river or even completely believed it happened at all.

Philanthropy was forced to go underground after that, but despite the Patriot-orchestrated conspiracy against them and Liquid believed to be dead, RAY's existence was made public all the same. An offshore treatment plant called the Big Shell was built where the Discovery sank, under the guise of cleaning the environmental fallout from the tanker's destruction. Through a series of events, the plant became the site of a convoluted situation involving Otacon's own stepsister, Metal Gear RAY, the US President, and yet another new form of Metal Gear. As with most of Liquid's problems, Ocelot was at the core of this. Also involved was former military group Dead Cell led by someone calling himself 'Liquid Snake'. Liquid himself infiltrated under the alias of a Navy SEAL, 'Lieutenant Junior Grade James Moriarty', Otacon taking the role of the Big Shell's security systems architect. Eventually Liquid encountered an operative named Raiden who claimed to be from FOXHOUND. As the former FOXHOUND commander himself, obviously Liquid knew this was either a lie or one hell of a delusion. Ignoring it in favor of the greater priority at hand, Liquid started working with Raiden despite the fact that everything about the younger soldier irritated him on nearly every possible level.

Around the time Liquid would arrive in Animus, the two were defusing bombs left by Dead Cell member Fatman--unknown to either of them, Fatman was an agent of the Patriots specifically assigned to test Raiden's abilities. After an oversight on the parts of Liquid, Raiden, and bomb expert Peter Stillman, an explosion damaged several sections of the Big Shell and knocked Liquid unconscious; at which point he'd awaken in the Tower.

Personality:

Liquid is a loud and arrogant individual who makes a tremendous show of everything he does. He is overly theatrical, often pontificating in the most verbose and showy manner he can manage. However, despite speaking as highly of his accomplishments as possible Liquid has an incredibly low opinion of himself. Having been raised to believe himself inferior, every small failure or mistake sticks out in his mind and overshadows anything one could point out to him as actual successes no matter how significant. In Liquid's mind, anything he could do is something his father could have done better. When it comes to his brother, that facet of his inferiority complex has lessened slightly. Slightly, but not completely; apparently even defeating him firsthand couldn't convince Liquid he was the better of the two.

Often Liquid is cold and distant, but a few years' time spent with Otacon has evened him out somewhat. The overt cruelty he might have displayed in the past has calmed down to a sarcastic and occasionally sardonic attitude, and while he's hardly compassionate it's unlikely he'll flat-out ignore someone looking for help. While all that is true, he still remains a highly paranoid and distrustful individual who can and will lie as easily as he can breathe.

His one true desire and his perceived purpose in life is to fight, and to most that likely seems like the only joy he gets out of life. While combat is very possibly something he loves above almost all else, Liquid keeps his enjoyment of things like classic literature and music entirely to himself. From his perspective, things any normal human would do are the unusual aspects of himself--a living weapon shouldn't exactly need a pasttime, after all.

When on any sort of mission, Liquid is cold and professional, executing whatever needs to be done with precision and meticulous attention to detail. He almost never panics in a combat situation; when under stress he'll much more likely lash out with a few sarcastic remarks. By all appearances in and out of a fight he is an individual utterly without fear, and for that matter seems like someone who is more accustomed to being feared. However, Liquid's complete lack of fear has one glaring weakness--claustrophobia. Much to his eternal shame and regret Liquid has an intense fear of confinement, particularly in small or enclosed spaces.

Abilities:

Due to the fact that he was essentially created to be a perfect soldier, Liquid has slightly superhuman strength, agility, and durability. (Canon!Liquid is seen to survive the explosions of both a helicopter and a mecha, as well as missiles to the face and a fifty foot drop onto a metal floor.) He is skilled in fighting with or without weapons; notable is the fact that he can accurately fire an assault rifle one-handed. As a soldier trained mostly in matters of stealth and subterfuge, Liquid can often go more or less undetected should he choose to. Camouflaging himself in any given environment is something he's skilled in, though it tends to have varying degrees of success. He is usually very aware of his surroundings and everything in them, and his brush with death after the tanker incident left him with a faint ability to detect even the supernatural (read: spirits, ghosts, etc. Notably, his father was seen to have this ability in MGS3 as well.)

Liquid is also unbelievably intelligent, with an IQ of 180. Though he tends to fail in common sense, his working knowledge of other subjects is nearly unparalleled. He can pilot and repair just about any vehicle, speaks seven different languages, and once in a great while quotes classic literature from memory. In short, he's more or less as smart as he is dangerous.

Another 'ability' of sorts is something shared by the majority of Metal Gear characters--Codec communication. Provided they're outfitted with the same, Liquid can contact others with a type of audio communication impossible to overhear except through monitoring either individual's specific frequency. (clarification: if he were to call Otacon, people standing directly next to either of them would not be able to hear them talking. If they were to somehow monitor Otacon's frequency of 141.12 or Liquid's of 141.80, they could eavesdrop that way. no one in-universe fully explains how this works, it just does.) Essentially, this is limited only to others with Codec/nanocommunication and will likely never see use except with castmates.

One last piece of equipment he has is stealth camouflage, received from Otacon after the Shadow Moses incident. It is a small device that when activated, renders the one carrying it invisible. However, the user would still be visible to thermal or infrared scanners, and any sound they made would still be audible. Liquid personally prefers to use it only in dire situations when he absolutely needs to disappear and no other forms of camouflage are available.

Sample Entry: Here!