This thread and the previous one are diamonds. Really relieves the Phantom Pain, from this wreck of a story. Only thing that barely redeems it IMO is if you interpret Venom as being pissed about being tricked by BB and dying as the puppet he learns he is. If he willingly chose the path of puppet to be thrown away so ironically like The Boss, he deserves no respect, but if he rejected his phantom's will, and was planning on hunting BB down if he could kill "his genes", then I salute our dear Venom.
Either way, the real twist is that BB already did his demonizing, probably shortly after his coma or as implied in the truth tape conversations with Ocelot, he had already chosen his Outer Heaven/Zanzibar Land path after the Peace Walker incident and was ready to "NUUUCLEEAAR" to oppose Cipher pretty soon had Skullface not crashed his party.
Bottom line, BB was "already a demon" and depending on the player's choices, Venom could follow him (leading to permanently bloodstained super horn Venom) or to subconsciously divert their path from that. Which is cool and all, especially if the no nuke ending was or perhaps is still in the narrative canon, but then Venom finds himself in Outer Heaven anyways, and its implied he alone builds it?
I like the idea that Outer Heaven was more misunderstood and that Venom was really just running a hardcore version of Diamond Dogs while BB was the total bastard who played everyone like a damn fiddle until Solid put him in his place.
In that sense we got our wish to see BB "turn evil", but it's so stupid. Why didn't Kojima just make the game straightforward with this?
Fan-fic time:
BB seeks vengeance on Skullface and sends more and more men to die in large scale battles against XOF and burns villages to pursue his needs and acquire military hardware and information. At the same time Eli builds a commando force of child soldiers loyal(ish) to Big Boss and him, that BB finds himself relying on again and again for support and eventually entire missions.
Gray Fox joins BB as his "most trusted lieutenant" and is another talking head back at Mother Base (is maybe Ishmael). PTSD and possible psychic manipulation + head shrapnel causes Big Boss to continually lose his grip and start actively recruiting more child soldiers for Eli's sub-army at Eli's suggestion (who may be plotting a coup, but is still useful to BB until then so he keeps Eli around despite figuring it out).
He then sends a group of these child commandos into a village (the burnt one from the trailers) to carry out an important operation with official DD troops as backup, while he investigates a related lead in another location where Skullface may be. The operation goes AWOL and the player is given the choice after hearing Skullface may be in the village to bomb it after being told by one of the child commanders that they can make it out in time. Whether the player chooses this option or not, they die regardless, as a firefight breaks out if you don't bomb the village.
Kaz, who had been increasingly disturbed by BB's descent had been planning a Diamond Dogs coup for a while, and had built enough of a sub-sect of loyalty within the group to cause a schism. With a push from Zero, who wants to get to Skullface just as much as anyone else, Kaz pulls the trigger on the coup (see scenes of BB killing his own men), forces lead by Kaz and Cipher fight forces backed by BB and Ocelot on Mother Base, while a small group with Gray Fox as the head moves to act on the one lead recovered from the ashes of the operation which broke the peace between the two sides. Skullface was planning on creating his own military nation,
Outer Heaven.
The Gray Fox group perhaps acts independently, with maybe the player being given a few missions with a smaller DD force, and playing as Gray Fox, while the BB situation comes to a close. They discover the location and prepare to overtake the base Skullface has set up (not the final location for OH). Switch back to BB as Zero appears at Mother Base to "forgive BB for his foolishness" and give him one last chance to come back to the good will of Cipher. Destroy Outer Heaven before it begins, and the Metal Gear Skullface possesses along with it.
BB "agrees" under Zero's orders to "surrender to Skullface" and pretend to work under him until the chance is right to rig the Metal Gear to unleash its payload on a timer to blow up the whole base and the surrounding region. And so begins the final or penultimate chapter of the game, working for Skullface and learning more about his goals, his intentions, committing more atrocities and losing grip on your identity as BB (works with all the previous Skullface/BB hints). BB begins to truely "become the mask" and sees why a hugely powerful destructive force must at all costs oppose Cipher's will to keep the world "free".
As BB was working for Skullface, bringing Skully's army nation closer to fruition, Ocelot secretly supports Gray Fox's expansion of the Diamonds Dogs survivors loyal to Big Boss. This group bolsters its numbers by relying on recruiting more child soldiers with the reluctant help of Eli, Gray Fox sympathizes well with the new group of kids, having shared a similar history and despite Eli trying to steer their loyalty primarily to himself, Gray Fox manages to make them completely loyal to BB. Eli makes a last ditch effort to sieze control, retaliation for having lost his original unit to the selfish adults, but fails and must retreat, only to be seen later in MGS1. The grudge he bears against BB drives him in the future, he trusted BB before and it cost him his "men", he relies on himself until his death.
BB's final gambit swings into play. He decides the time is right and orders a number of simultaneous strikes on Skullface's Outer Heaven. Skullface, who believed as Zero and Kaz did, that BB had no remaining chess pieces is caught off guard and loses track of BB, ordering his execution. And so the final mission to get to the Metal Gear hangar begins. It is an interior infiltration to try to sneak through a base you have only architectural knowledge of, to get to the heart of the nation's power.
Once finding the Metal Gear, you must of course fight Skullface in a climactic battle, as the fighting between child soldiers + DD vs XOF/Outer Heaven troops rages on around you. After getting revenge on Skullface for everything BB lost to him, you assist your troops in the crumbling wreck of the Metal Gear, in a playable section much like MGS4's REX ride. After the battle is won, BB orders Gray Fox to get the troops to steal as much equipment, copters, information and other things from Outer Heaven as possible, as he rigs the Metal Gear to blow just as Zero instructed in his "goodwill mission".
BB informs Gray Fox that Outer Heaven will rise again, and Cipher will not be unopposed, and orders that he flies everyone out of the base as the timer counts down. Gray Fox will establish the new Outer Heaven and be BB's right hand man there until Outer Heaven becomes autonomous by which time BB will control it through indirect and intermittent communications until the time to strike back at Cipher has come. Gray Fox will leave Outer Heaven in a year or two in order to come into Foxhound long enough to remove suspicion on himself as an double agent with BB.
BB sets his sights of revenge on Cipher and Kaz for breaking Diamond Dogs as he successfully gains their trust thanks to the smoldering crater that is "Outer Heaven". Big Boss remarks that he couldn't confirm if Skullface was dead, and says some choppers escaped, but Zero's naïveté and willingness to arrogantly believe he has "finally won BB over" allows BB to live this lie long enough for him to get back in Cipher's good graces.
So explains Big Boss' descent into evil, a whole year spent, where his morals get lost to a lust for revenge. By the end of it, Skullface managed to influence Big Boss' thoughts enough for BB to honor his "Outer Heaven" idea (and logo), even if he wouldn't ever let the man live. And it also explains Zero and BB becoming legit enemies, and at the same time why Zero would trust him with Foxhound, because he wanted to believe he had broken BB's will, when it actuality he had just twisted it further against Cipher.
Explains the whole "Big Boss's most trusted lieutenant" thing, because Gray Fox could have been known simply as Ishmael in the game, only gaining his Gray Fox codename in Foxhound as implied before, and since Miller isn't working as support for Operation Intrude, he might not have been able to ID Gray Fox. Also gives a good reason why Eli would both admire and hate BB, because he showed strength, but ultimately sacrificed Eli's original unit for almost nothing. And finally, the success of the DD + new child soldiers operations erases any doubts BB had at their effectiveness, and his delusions helped by Skullface make him even believe he is helping them (since "they'd be caught up in Zero's eventual war economy anyway", he's "freeing them from an honorless death").
Don't know about fitting Quiet, or Code Talker in, optional storylines I guess. "Those who don't exist" are still the boss unit, but with better designed boss battles for Volgin, the Skulls and Psycho Kiddo all being given more gameplay depth as fights (Pyscho Kiddo of course being now able to be fought, though not killed for obvious reasons). Perhaps Volgin would rage out of control with a short monologue of revenge against BB when he "surrenders" to Skullface, so Volgin's fight would be at the beginning of the final or penultimate chapter. When you win, Skullface admits he "never trusted Volgin, so you'll fit right in to his place", giving Big Boss a roughly equivalent place, with a heavy "guard detail".
There, BH straightforward I didn't mean ultra simple, but I think this gets the job done in fulfilling the "2taboo4u" marketing and build up for this game, and works much better to bridge the gap between hero and villain by exploring the cycle of revenge.
In the game as it is Kojima clearly didn't want to really have players go through that though so the whole game is a ruse, and it turns out BB's been a douche for longer than we thought. Venom was Jesus and also a big dope who either got himself tricked by BB or even sacrificed himself for the man, even after learning that he's a fake.
That is actually brilliant.
The zero part of the story makes virtually no sense. Even the retcons contradict each other when it comes to him. It has to be intended.
I don't think I hated a character as much as Huey in MGs, ever. I felt really sad and frustrated about not being able to murder him.
Makes what Christopher Randolph said earlier about how Hal is a much better man, who atones for his family's sins in a YongYea/"The Codec" interview pre-release all the more meaningful. That and his mother's subtle Patriot AI protection of him makes Hal an even more cool character. To think Strangelove was suspected in theories as manipulating poor old Huey... So glad he died horribly, and after realizing his piece of shit nature.
have fun with your games