The Patriots' AIs

The Patriots' AIs, also known as The System, were the proxy AIs that governed the Patriots, and by extension, held control over the entire United States and the entire world by the 2000s.

History

Around the 1970s, Zero and Donald Anderson got the idea to use AIs to rule over humanity from Hot Coldman's beliefs, although they wished to just use information control as a precaution.

Later, Zero began to lose faith in humanity, due in part to the "betrayal" of Big Boss. Rather than pass his organization Cipher down to the next generation, believing that they would be incapable of understanding his vision, and combined with a parasite that slowly robbed him of cognitive functions, Zero commissioned Strangelove to develop four AIs (AL, TR, TJ, and GW) to serve as "successors" with JD as a fifth AI to oversee them. They felt, however, that an AI could not be trusted to make its own decisions after what happened in 1974 so they took away its ability to act independently and Strangelove created a specialized system which bound the AIs to a specific set of rules which limited their function to filtering information which would then be passed on to human operatives in order to guide their decision making. But by the 1980s, Strangelove ended up killed by being sealed within The Boss AI by Huey Emmerich as revenge involving their son Hal Emmerich, which resulted in Anderson taking over development of the AIs. Instead of programming the ability to understand basic human concepts like empathy as Strangelove originally envisioned as allowing for a brighter future that The Boss envisioned, Anderson decided to program the ability to learn for themselves and give broad instructions.

At a later point, the Patriots had JD orbit the Earth aboard a military satellite disguised as debris, and set the framework for each AIs' eventual activation (particularly GW's information control capabilities) around the turn of the century. By gaining full access to the Internet and placing a program within, which was distributed to various key military and governmental locations, and to the public as an OS program (allegedly to counteract the Y2K bug). The program itself contained a sub-program that would delete and replace information once activated, which would be when GW itself was activated. In addition, they used Big Boss's DNA to act as the key to the AI network. At an unknown point of their development, the AI network also began to deviate from Zero's will and eliminate every trace of The Boss's will.

The Manhattan Incident

See also: Tanker Incident and the Big Shell Incident

In 2009, the incomplete GW AI was housed within Arsenal Gear, during Solidus Snake's takeover of the Big Shell. The Patriots staged the entire incident and manipulated from behind the scenes in order to provide complex data for GW to study. The AI did this by tricking Raiden into doing the Patriots' work by feeding his anticipations and pretending to be Colonel Campbell (and even Rosemary at certain points). Raiden thus believed himself to be a member of FOXHOUND, and was effectively "molded" as part of the S3 Plan. The AI also controlled a number of unmanned mass-produced Metal Gear RAY units. The only unforeseen factor was Solid Snake.

The S3 Plan involved GW being infected with Emma Emmerich's worm cluster in order to mimic the effects of the FOXDIE virus from 2005. The virus corrupted the AI and caused its systems to fail, resulting in Raiden's support team beginning to act strangely, and the mass-produced Metal Gear RAY units to go haywire. Later, Liquid Ocelot intentionally caused Arsenal Gear itself to crash into Manhattan so that he could later recover the damaged AI on board.^[1]

After the crash that Liquid had caused into lower Manhattan, Raiden was contacted by another AI, speaking in the voice of Campbell and Rose. Unlike GW's more mission-based tone, this AI spoke with an almost unworldly presence, with a condescending tone to the human race in general. The AI told Raiden the true nature of the S3 Plan, a plan in which the Patriots would control the world through the digital flow of information. Giving Raiden his final mission, the AI instructed him to defeat Solidus in battle, which he had no choice, due to the Patriots holding a child hostage, as well as revealing Rosemary (who was pregnant at the time of the mission) was held hostage under similar methods.

Guns of the Patriots Incident

See also: Liquid Sun, Solid Sun, Third Sun, Twin Suns, Old Sun, and Naked Sin/Naked Son

In 2014, Liquid Ocelot managed to reconstruct GW using its broken pieces, allowing himself access to the neural network of the Patriots' AIs and subsequently being able to control the SOP System.^[2] With GW linked directly into the Patriots' networks, GW became a sort of data haven. Through his GW, Liquid attempted to hack through the ID System using Liquid Snake's DNA in the Middle East and a second attempt using his "brother's" DNA in South America.

In Eastern Europe, Big Mama revealed to Old Snake not just GW, but TJ, TR, AL, and JD (referring to them as "a digital Mount Rushmore"). Ocelot later discovered that JD was attached to a satellite and decided that stealing Metal Gear REX's railgun and launching a nuclear warhead at JD would be the only way he could fully take control of SOP with GW, as when JD was eliminated GW would take its spot as the priority AI, controlling the entire system in the process. However, Snake and Otacon were able to upload the FOXALIVE virus into GW, and unbeknownst to them it spread into all the Patriots' five AIs, eliminating them all and successfully defeating the Patriots and Liquid simultaneously (although the upload of the FOXALIVE virus was actually part of Ocelot's true plan).

Post-Guns of the Patriots

As few people knew the existence of the Patriots even with the increase of awareness by the time of 2018, even less, including Raiden, Courtney Collins, and Kevin Washington, knew that the organization was run by AIs instead of people. When Raiden explained the little he knew about their motivations for creating the war economy (to which even he himself wondered whether they even knew, as was whether what they told him during his encounter with them were their true motivations or a lie crafted to further manipulate him as a tool) to Collins, she grew deeply horrified at the nature of the AIs, and expressed relief that they were actually destroyed. In addition, Raiden's encounter with the AIs led him to be deeply mistrustful of sentient optic-neural AIs such as Blade Wolf, such as calling him out when the AI weapon claimed that "an AI never lies," and also being bemused with the LQ-84i after his defeat at the hands of Raiden that he could conceive of, much less desire, freedom. Unfortunately, their defeat also ensured the rise of Steven Armstrong, with Raiden remarking that, when he and the others deactivated the AI systems, he did not do it so America could be destroyed by someone like Armstrong.

AI identities

• JD (core AI)
• AL
• TR
• TJ
• GW

Personality and traits

The Patriots' AIs were created to maintain a unified world state based on Zero's interpretation of The Boss's will. However, after the AIs evolved to think for themselves, they became very ruthless and manipulative and would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They had no conscience, as shown by them causing so many deaths since Shadow Moses. It is heavily implied that this dark element to their character ultimately stemmed from Dr. Strangelove being unable to program them with the ability to understand human concepts such as empathy. Before she could finish, she was murdered by Huey Emmerich as revenge for not allowing him to use his son as a test subject for Metal Gear Sahelanthropus. As a result, Donald Anderson had to teach them how to learn and think for themselves as a stop-gap measure.

They claimed to believe that they secretly ruled humanity for their own good, but it is unknown if this was just a lie devised to further manipulate Raiden, or if they themselves truly believed this. This statement, if the latter was true, made them out to be hypocrites. They said that soldiers like Raiden, Solid Snake, and Big Boss were expendable weapons to be used until they had fulfilled their purpose, and then killed on their orders. They also specifically told Raiden that he acted as "the representative of the masses,” implicitly claiming that the masses were expendable weapons as well. They also claimed themselves to be the amalgamation of the collective will of the United States of America since its foundation.

The AIs were very controlling, as when Solidus Snake caused the Shadow Moses Incident, they deposed him and tried to kill him, and he only managed to survive with the help of Revolver Ocelot (although it is not made clear whether the Patriots were also involved in Ocelot aiding Solidus into hiding, due to them later using Solidus in the S3 Plan). They used an infant Sunny and Rose (the latter being pregnant at the time) who they would murder (and in the case of Rose, abort her baby in the process) without hesitation if Raiden refused to kill Solidus, forcing him to obey, and showing how far they would go to get what they want. In the case of Sunny, they had previously used her as leverage towards her mother Olga Gurlukovich to ensure the success of the S3 Plan. They used SOP to control soldiers and planned to use SOP to control civilians, effectively fulfilling the Patriots’ ultimate goal to rule the world. This trait earned the AIs the hatred of many individuals.

The AIs were very intelligent, patient and strategic. They devised long-term plans to achieve their goals, conceptualizing the S3 Plan as early as the Shadow Moses Incident in 2005. The plan took four years to complete, and their manipulation of it proved they could successfully control the world. In addition, they were perfectly capable of indirectly controlling people who were otherwise complete enemies or strangers, via subterfuge. This was especially evident with their manipulation of the Sons of Liberty, James Johnson (whom at the time had defected to their group), the Gurlukovich Mercenaries, and even Philanthropy in 2007 and 2009, as well as Rat Patrol in 2014. In addition, Drebin implied that the Patriots were directly responsible for creating gun launderers, or at the very least, the DREBINS, to manipulate the war economy entirely, even without SOP.

The Patriots' AIs were very driven, so much so they were willing to imprison or kill innocent people to get what they wanted. For example, they framed Jackson and had Ocelot kill Scott Dolph and many Marines on board the USS Discovery tanker. They also maintained the war economy, which caused many deaths, including several indirect casualties via gun launderers. Furthermore, they had no problem killing their own agents to fulfill their plans, such as killing Richard Ames and betraying Jim Houseman, whose subsequent death they may have later orchestrated.

Because they had no qualms keeping vital information from their own agents, Richard Ames was left confused regarding Raiden's mission and the actions of the Sons of Liberty. They even supplied false or—at best—half-truthful information regarding the S3 plan to Revolver Ocelot, despite being key to ensuring its success. There was also an implication from Snake that they gave Ocelot a fake location. They were also very sadistic. They laughed at Raiden's protestations of their plans and his being the "model" of the masses, while simultaneously arguing that they had a right to rule the world. After declaring the project a “resounding success," they ordered Raiden to kill Solidus Snake.

The Patriots' AIs were very arrogant and megalomaniacal. They believed that they had the right to rule the world and play with the lives of humanity, even freely admitting to viewing humanity as nothing more than tools to be disposed of after their usefulness had ended.^[3] Ironically, this arrogance led to their destruction. The AIs thought they could manipulate Solid Snake and Hal Emmerich into killing Liquid Ocelot to save themselves from his insurrection, but Snake and Hal used the FOXALIVE virus to kill them (something Liquid Ocelot had viewed was necessary for his plot). They also raised Sunny to be a child prodigy for unknown reasons, but the skills they taught her were used to complete the FOXALIVE virus, which later led to their demise.

The AI that communicated with Raiden late into the Big Shell Incident was also capable of mimicking voices. This was evidenced by the AI mimicking James Johnson, Olga Gurlukovich, and Emma Emmerich's voices in certain instances in its speech to Raiden. Similarly, it could also appear in the image of someone whom Raiden either knew (such as when it mimicked Rosemary) or had expectations of (like with its constant use of the Colonel program). It could also alter said images to appear more gruesome, such as having its Colonel program look more skull-like, or having its Rosemary mimic display blank eyes. It is implied that this was done at will on its part. For instance, the Colonel program shifts to the skull-like visage when explaining that the Patriots’ true nature “[was] not, as [Raiden] would call them, human" to begin with, before shifting back to its standard appearance.

Behind the scenes

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the AI that contacts Raiden after the destruction of GW, was identified as "JFK" in the game's script (named after John Fitzgerald Kennedy). It has been speculated that this may have been JD, though future games (in which the AIs were given their names) do not specify which of the four other AIs was actually speaking. The script also implied that this was one of many AIs, each housed aboard its own Arsenal Gear unit.

With the exception of JD, all of the proxy AIs shared the same name as the AIs used for the AI weapons developed via the Peace Walker project in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

The AIs, or rather, thefourregularAIs and their namesake of Mt. Rushmore, were later referenced as the third and final MG America Fact on the official Metal Gear Twitter account, with pictures including GW as it appeared in MGS4 and the actual Mt. Rushmore.^[4]

Although they don't have a direct appearance in the non-canon game Metal Gear Solid Mobile, they are alluded to, as Otacon mentioned when revealing himself that he had to hack an AI in order to find Snake, and also indicated that said AI was powerful enough that he had to expend all of his hacking abilities just to even crack into it, showcasing just how powerful the AI was and causing him to suspect that Snake's captors had near-limitless resources.

Appearences

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
• Metal Gear Solid Mobile (indirect mention; non-canon)
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (mentioned)
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (mentioned)
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (mentioned)

Notes and references