Characters

• Liquid Ocelot: Do you see this, Zero? We are victorious! Behold! Guns of the Patriots!

• Liquid Ocelot: Brother, Rejoice! We're not copies of our father, after all!
  • Screams this to Old Snake

• Raiden: Sunny told me to tell you... "I cooked them right" (to Naomi before she dies)

• Naomi: Good for you Sunny...

• Raiden: I am lighting...The rain Transformed

• Screaming Mantis: NO, SORROW, MY DOLL!!! - NO, MANTIS!!!

• Sunny: Come quick, they're ready! It looks... Yummy! Like the sun... It's rising again... (game's last words before ranking)

Old Snake

• Old Snake: War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War, and its consumption of life, has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID tagged soldiers carry ID tagged weapons, use ID tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control. Information control. Emotion control. Battlefield control. Everything is monitored, and kept under control. War has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control. All in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction. And he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war...becomes routine.

• Old Snake: I'm no hero. Never was. I'm just an old killer, hired to do some wet work.

• Old Snake: I'm a shadow, one that no light will shine on. As long as you follow me, you'll never see the day.

• Old Snake: You were the lightning in that rain, you can still shine through the darkness.
  • To Raiden.

 Big Boss

• Big Boss: Everything has its beginning. But doesn't start at "one." It starts long before that, in chaos. The world is born... From zero. The moment zero becomes one is the moment the world springs to life. One becomes two, two becomes ten, ten becomes 100. Taking it all back to one solves nothing. So long as zero remains one will eventually grow to 100 again. And so our goal was to erase Zero. Even the mighty Patriots began with a single man. That one man's desires grew huge, bloated; absorbed technology; began to manipulate the economy. We realized too late that we had created a beast. We had helped turn Zero into 100. His sin... was ours. And for that reason, I'm taking it upon myself to send Zero back to nothing.

• Big Boss: Ever since the day I killed The Boss, with my own hands, I...was already dead.

• Big Boss: It all began with a bunch of old fools. Now... They've all passed away. Their era of folly is over. I'm the only one left, and soon I'll be gone, too.

• Big Boss: I never thought of you as a son. But... I always respected you, as a soldier... and as a man.

• Big Boss: It's not about changing the world. It's about doing our best to leave the world the way it is. It's about respecting the will of others and believing in your own...Isn't that...what...you fought for? At last, I understand the meaning of what you did...At last, I understand the truth behind your courage.

• Big Boss: Know this, Zero... and... I... Liquid and Solidus... We all fought a long, bloody war for our liberty to free ourselves from systems, nations, norms and ages, but no matter how hard we fought the only liberty we found was on the inside, trapped within those limits... The Boss and I may have taken different paths but in the end, we were both trapped inside the same cage... "Liberty."

• Big Boss: This is good, isn't it? [Big Boss' last words]

 Gravestones

• Big Boss: A hero, forever loyal to the flames of war, rests in Outer Heaven. 193X - 1999

• The Boss: In memory of a patriot who saved the world 192X - 1964

The Ending

• Big Boss: That's right. Good. No need for you to go just yet. It's been a long time... Snake.

• Big Boss: He was a perfect clone. Zero, and the proxy AIs that came after him, were convinced that Solidus was me. I was implanted with nanomachines... kept in a state of eternal sleep... by JD the proxy AI. They had me sealed away completely... not only physical body, but my will, too. The technology was similar to what they used to restrain the B&B members you encountered. For me to wake again... The System had to be destroyed... one way or another. Ocelot and EVA wanted two things... To bring me back to life, and to end the Patriots. That meant destroying the AI and killing the man... JD and Zero. Right before you uploaded the virus into GW... The way to JD was opened, but only through the physical manifestation of GW. That's when we finally learned the location of this man... Zero. For me, and for them... For Naomi... nothing was more important. And it was for that they put their grand scheme into motion. EVA stole my body from them and reconstructed it by replacing the missing parts with pieces from Liquid and Solidus. And Ocelot... in order to fool the System... used nanomachines and psychotherapy to transplant Liquid's personality onto his own. He used hypnotic suggestion to turn himself into Liquid's mental doppelganger. For all our advances in nanotechnology... Information and genetic control... They've never managed to control people at will... Let alone turn one person totally into another.

• Big Boss: The proxies were only one small part of the vast cycle that Zero created. The corporations, for-profits... and research institutions that comprise the military-industrial complex were part of it, too. They operated on budgets automatically allotted to them by the proxies... Accounts maintained by the Patriots. The network covered everything from weapons R&D and investment to production and marketing. It encompassed the people, the companies - even the laws that protect them. Politics and economics became nothing more than iterations of the same oppressively uniform system. I don't think anyone realized that it was all a setup... A mere set of norms. The Patriots were those norms - a neural network reduced to its simplest form. That's what they really represented... Uniformity without individual will, without change. But then one day, those norms suddenly deviated from that pattern, and underwent a mutation. It was like the birth of a new life form... The System found a new way to propagate itself... War. The norms the Patriots had crafted for their unified state quickly became dependent on a single business... The war economy. Meanwhile, the political cause of creating a "cleaner, safer battlefield" provided a convenient catalyst. By then, the System was no longer being steered by Zero's will -- or anyone else's. It was then that the norms - manifested as AIs, the inheritors of Zero's will... began to reproduce and take on a life of their own. Zero's original intent was to carry on The Boss's will and establish a unified world state... An inside world. But his successors failed to carry on his will. Eventually, JD became the very age itself, propagating its will as it pleased. And this age chose to act through economics instead of nation-states. Powered by the industrial and digital revolutions that came before it... this age gave birth to a twisted economic revolution - a battlefield revolution. It created a new world without substance. In this new world, there were no ideologies, no principles, no ideals... not even the thing she treasured most... Loyalty. There was only the war economy. It was a colossal error in judgment - one Zero couldn't possibly have foreseen.

• Big Boss: With the American system in a state of collapse... The Patriots' society has reverted to a blank slate. This man was the source of it all. And he doesn't even realize it. He's completely unaware of the fact that he led the world to the brink of ruin. Even with so much bad blood between us... It's funny... Now that I'm actually face to face with him again... The hatred is gone. All I feel is a deep sense of longing. And pity. Did Zero really hate me? Or... did he fear me? It's too late to ask him now. The original members... Para-Medic... Sigint... EVA... Ocelot. They've all passed on. Only Zero is left. Everything has its beginning... but it doesn't start at "one." It starts long before that... in chaos. The world is born... from zero. The moment zero becomes one is the moment the world springs to life. One becomes two... Two becomes 10... 10 becomes 100. Taking it all back to one solves nothing. So long as zero remains... One... will eventually grow to 100 again. And so... our goal... was to erase Zero. Even the mighty Patriots began with a single man. That one man's desires grew huge... bloated. Absorbed technology began to manipulate the economy. We realized too late... that we had created a beast. We had helped turn Zero... into 100. His sin... was ours. And for that reason... I'm taking it upon myself to send Zero... back to nothing.

• Big Boss: They did it again. They used you to kill me. The Patriots. No... their proxies... In order to bury us... They did it again. In the end, they're no more than a program. All they can do is repeat the same pattern over and over again. Do me a favor, will you? Take me over to her. There's one more thing Naomi wanted me to tell you. About the... old FOXDIE in your body... The only that mutated. The new FOXDIE inside you continues to multiply. At the same time... it is preventing the old... mutated FOXDIE from reproducing. The new FOXDIE is uprooting the old. Naomi confirmed it in her follow-up. The mutants are receding. Before long, they'll be gone entirely.

• Big Boss: Everyone dies. You can't stop it. You can't run away from it. Let me tell you something... Don't... Don't waste the life you have left fighting. I've never thought of you... as a son. But I've always respected you as a soldier. And... as a man. If you'd been in my place back then... maybe you wouldn't have made the same mistakes that I did. Ever since the day I killed The Boss... with my own hands... I... was already dead. Boss... you were right. It's not about changing the world. It's about doing our best to leave the world... the way it is. It's about respecting the will of others... And believing in your own. Isn't that... what you fought for? At last... I understand the meaning behind what you did. At last... I understand the truth behind your courage. It's almost time for me to go. And with me... the last ember of this fruitless war dies out. And at last those old evils will be gone. Once the source of evil returns to zero... a new one... a new future... will be born. That new world... is yours to live in. Not as a snake... but... as a man. Know this... Zero and I... Liquid and Solidus... We all fought a long, bloody war for our liberty. We fought to free ourselves from nations... and systems... and norms, and ages. But no matter how hard we tried, the only liberty we found... was on the inside... trapped within those limits. The Boss and I may have chosen different paths... But in the end, we were both trapped inside the same cage... Liberty. But you... You have been given freedom. Freedom to be... outside. You are nobody's tool now... No-one's toy. You are no longer a prisoner of fate. You are no longer a seed of war. It's time for you to see the outside world with your own eyes. Your body... and your soul... are your own. Forget about us. Live... for yourself. And find... a new lease on life. Boss... you only need one snake. No... The world would be better off without snakes. This is good... isn't it?

KTM X-Bow Street

FA BENE UN PO' DI... MOTO

La vostra idea di auto? Cancellatela, ripartite da zero. Impossibile incasellare la KTM X-Bow, se non come un incrocio di mondi lontanissimi. Un po' auto, un po' (tanto) moto: una naked, per l'esattezza, dove il concetto dell'essenzialità è stato portato all'estremo, tanto da considerare superfluo persino il vuoto di un bagagliaio.

È un giocattolo lungo 3,74 metri, con un accessorio "irrinunciabile": il volante estraibile. Costa un botto (quasi 1.200 euro), certo, ma ti permette di riprodurre la gestualità di un pilota di Formula 1. Non ci sono le porte (bisogna scavalcare) e il sedile, fisso, è uno straterello di gomma steso sulla nuda fibra di carbonio. A bordo le regolazioni, "amplissime", sono due: quella del volante, in altezza e profondità, e quella longitudinale della pedaliera. Fine. La cosa pazzesca è che ci stai pure comodo, nella X-Bow. Più che altro perché la posizione di guida è naturale.

Anche la leva del cambio è al posto giusto: corta, manovrabile, precisa. E dolce. La morbidezza dei comandi, però, non è casuale: l'idea della KTM era quella di costruire un'auto con la quale raggiungere l'autodromo su strada guidando nel traffico senza smadonnare. Il pedale della frizione, invece, è molto pesante, 19 kg, ma è anche modulabile e resistente, mentre lo sterzo mantiene un carico costante, richiedendo uno sforzo supplementare solo in manovra, perché il comando non è servoassistito.

La strumentazione è essenziale, completamente digitale, con le informazioni essenziali per tenere sotto controllo temperature, giri del motore e velocità. Dalla parte del passeggero non c'è nulla, se non una borsina morbida attaccata alla scocca con due strisce di velcro per i documenti. La voce, ma solo quella, del TFSI Audi-VW è ruvida, rude, grezza, in netto contrasto con le raffinatezze del comparto telaio-assetto-sospensioni (firmate Dallara), e al primo giro di giostra in pista te ne accorgi. Il turbobenzina da 240 CV è onesto e generoso, non vibra, e tutto quello che ha da offrire lo esprime ai bassi e medi giri.

L'allungo è modesto e dai 200 all'ora in su serve un aeroporto per prendere ancora un po' di velocità. Ma non è un problema, perché ciò che fa letteralmente paura è la velocità in curva, dove non bisogna assecondare il proprio istinto di conservazione, ma osare ben oltre. La KTM X-Bow ha una tenuta di strada di due spanne superiore a quella di qualsiasi auto stradale. Consigliabile l'uso del casco: guidare senza è una follia. Si può farne a meno giusto per andare al bar o a prendere il giornale. Anche se usare la X-Bow per fare queste cose è abbastanza uno spreco...

(quattroruote)