Raiden (Metal Gear)

Raiden is a male video game character who features in Metal Gear.

Biography

Jack (Japanese: ジャック, Hepburn: Jakku) was a male human born on a rainy day in Liberia in the modern area where he grew up in the chaos of the First Liberian Civil War. During this time, he encountered a man named Solidus Snake who adopted he boy and named him after his godfather after he killed his former parents. In the time afterwards, he was raised as a child soldier and fought in the country's civil war in 1989 where he along with the other children were shown Hollywood action films on a daily basis as part of 'image training' with their food being mixed with gunpowder as well as touluene to make them more controllable.

Under Solidus, Jack became a killing machine, known alternately as the White Devil and Jack the Ripper due to his incredibly high kill rate compared to other boys his age, as well as a reference to his being one of the few Caucasians born in Liberia. Armed with a gun at the age of six, he would later remember it as an AK rifle, as well as a knife, he proved to be a superior soldier, rising to become captain of the Small Boy Unit at ten. His skills with a bladed weapon, as well as his cruelty in dispatching enemies with them, was another reason for his Ripper nickname. After the war ended, Solidus had Jack placed in a relief center.

Eventually, without Solidus' knowledge, he was later removed by a non-governmental organization and taken to the United States. Jack and other surviving members of the Small Boy Unit then underwent extensive amounts of counseling before becoming at least outwardly stable. There, Jack came into the hands of the Patriots, who implanted his cerebral cortex with a high concentration of nanomachines, in order to have him function as a back-up system for an optic-neuro AI. The Patriots chose him out of the other child soldiers in his unit because unlike the others, who would live up to their pasts and pay dearly for it, Jack did not accept his past and hated it. The same nanomachines were also capable of memory manipulation by connecting or stimulating synapses, primarily nerve sections in the dormant part of the brain. In addition, Jack was not listed under any of the United States databases.

Jack would grow up to suppress the memories about his terrible childhood, burying the memories of his bloody past, though he still suffered from nightmares of his past nearly every night. Now living a life in the United States, Jack joined the military where his admirable skills were at first recognized by the U.S. Army's Task Force XXI. From there he participated in over three hundred VR simulations, including re-creations of the Shadow Moses Incident and the Tanker Incident.

On April 30, 2007, Jack met Rosemary after transferring to Fort Hamilton in New York City, and had an argument about King Kong. After they parted ways, they met again afterwards, shocked that they worked in the same place. Eventually, Jack grew to love Rose deeply, but his cruel experiences had left him melancholic and emotionally distant, and he constantly shut her out of his problems. In large part because of his PTSD-induced nightmares, he also refused to sleep next to Rose out of fear of hurting her. Most times when they did get together, he either stayed awake all night or otherwise left Rose's place, and he wouldn't let her in his bedroom. This eventually culminated in Rose entering his room without his permission, which was devoid of any personal objects save for a bed and a desk. However, all of this drama was a ruse by the Patriots to gain more control over Jack's life, with Rosemary acting as a spy. Sometime prior to the Big Shell Incident, Jack was recruited into the supposedly reformed FOXHOUND, a special forces unit that no longer officially existed.

At the beginning of the Big Shell mission, Jack was briefly referred to as "Snake" before his codename was changed to "Raiden" by the Colonel, as the leader of the terrorists was also referring to himself as Solid Snake. Prior to being dispatched, Raiden's superiors also removed his natural blood, placed it in cold storage, and replaced it with a nanite filled blood substitute instead. On his way to the Big Shell, he also found that the oil fence had a recently-cut hole, implying that someone other than him had managed to sneak in. He later revealed this to the Colonel, who was surprised, since there wasn't supposed to be anyone other than Raiden who should have infiltrated the base. His suspicions that there was another intruder were quickly confirmed, as he entered a room full of knocked out guards and caught a glimpse of the man as he ascended in an elevator. Raiden took to the mission with some hesitation, claiming to have only been trained in VR missions.

Raiden later met up with Iroquois Pliskin, a Lieutenant Junior Grade with the U.S. Navy SEALs, who had saved Raiden from being ambushed by Vamp. He later witnessed the deaths of Seal Team 10's Bravo Unit at the hands of Fortune. Raiden later met Peter Stillman, although their meeting occurred awkwardly when Raiden mistook the latter for a bomber at work and held him up, and was tasked alongside Pliskin to freeze the detonators of C4 to ensure they at least weren't an immediate threat. After quelling the C4 threat, an event that ultimately cost Stillman his life, he later encountered the bomber responsible for the C4 plantings, Fatman, and defeated him as well as quelled his ultimate C4 package, although not before the latter hinted at the $30 billion ransom being false information planted by the Patriots for the S3 Plan. Raiden later was told to seek out Richard Ames in the Shell 1 Core, and ultimately found him after bypassing security measures and disguising himself, although Ames eventually died from a heart aneurysm, and was nearly captured until the cyborg ninja known only as Mr. X attacked the soldiers. During an encounter with Solidus, Pliskin was revealed to Raiden and Solidus to be the real Solid Snake, who had faked his death two years prior during the Tanker Incident.

Raiden eventually learned of the Patriots' existence, as well as the development of Arsenal Gear, an enormous warship for which the Big Shell acted as a disguise. He also rescued Arsenal's AI engineer Emma Emmerich and attempted to escort her to safety, although she was later killed by Vamp despite his best efforts. Throughout the mission, Raiden also harbored some suspicions that he may enjoy killing people, although he did not know why. Raiden and Snake were able to join forces to take down Dead Cell and upload a virus into GW, Arsenal's AI. He was then seemingly betrayed by Snake and was subsequently captured by Olga Gurlukovich. Taken aboard Arsenal, Raiden was later freed by Olga, telling him that they had needed to use him so that Snake could sneak on board. He also learned of Olga's motivation for aiding him: The Patriots forced her to participate by holding her child hostage, after her kid was kidnapped shortly after delivering her. However, he also had to endure some physical abuse by Olga to ensure her cover was remained intact. Rosemary then called him, to which he eventually admitted to her his past as one of Liberia's child soldiers, also revealing this was why he was very distant towards her. He also speculated that Solidus' role in his life may have been the reason why the Patriots selected him for the S3 Plan.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In his early days, he came to be known as the White Devil whilst serving as a child soldier. In addition, he came to be known as Jack the Ripper and as the Snake.

Due to his participation in the Liberian Civil War, Raiden was one of the few Force XXI VR subjects to possess actual combat experience. Also, because of his past as a child soldier, as well as his possessing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as a result, he also occasionally pushed away even people he cared about due to his being "afraid of the night." Because of this, he was outwardly cold and distant even to people whom he personally knew, such as his then-girlfriend Rosemary. It was largely because of this cold nature, as well as his pushing people he knew away that resulted in Rosemary initially fearing that he was unfaithful to her. When he first infiltrated the Big Shell, Raiden appeared to be a young and "inexperienced" agent of a "reformed" FOXHOUND unit, occasionally prone to emotional outbursts.

Raiden used to smoke cigarettes at one point in his life, but had quit by the time of the Big Shell Incident. He also possessed barcode tattoos all over his body.

Although he immensely respected Solid Snake, there were instances where it had its rough spots during the Big Shell Incident, such as when he learned that Snake and Otacon lied to him about whether they knew about the Big Shell being a great big conspiracy, as well as a remark Snake made that got him angered enough to make explosive insults about Snake, not realizing that he was in earshot, and when Snake "betrayed" Raiden at Arsenal Gear to lessen security on-board without warning him beforehand. Prior to finding out that Pliskin was in fact Snake, he also held some respect for Pliskin in terms of mentorship and camaraderie. Nonetheless, he did end up suspicious when Rosemary seemed to be praiseworthy of Pliskin.

Powers and abilities

Due to his harsh childhood, training from Solidus and the Army's virtual training, his mental state and capacity were well suited to combat operations behind enemy lines. He was calm under pressure, adaptive, and somewhat critical. This training and conditioning also put penalties on some of his social capabilities and mental stability. He was adept with a variety of weapons, from small arms to surface-to-air missiles. His training with Solidus suggested some emphasis in melee combat, and particularly in bladed weapons, as demonstrated by his defeat of Solidus in a sword fight during the Big Shell Incident. Raiden also showed great endurance and perseverance, as evidenced by his taking down multiple RAYs aboard Arsenal Gear, before becoming too exhausted to continue fighting.

After his transformation into a cyborg, Raiden gained incredible superhuman strength, speed and endurance. Raiden's superhuman durability makes him virtually indestructible due to the parts of his body made entirely out of steel and artificial muscle fibers. Because of his durability, Raiden, at times, had to resort to self mutilation in order to get his missions done, such as stabbing himself with his own blade to subdue Vamp and slicing his own arm off to free himself from fallen debris so he could save Snake. In addition, his durability was such that he claimed that he was immune to the effects of microwave emitters.

By 2018, Raiden had become a member of Maverick Security Consulting, Inc., doing multiple tasks while raising money for his family.

Notes

• Raiden was created by Hideo Kojima and designed by Yoji Shinkawa where he made his first appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001).

Appearances

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: (2001)

External Links

• Metal Gear Wiki Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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