He sees that soldiers are slaves of Nation States in service of Geopolitical goals so he creates a mercenary army free from any country, to fight for whoever regardless of ideology

This just makes soldiers slaves of the market and it's Geopolitical goals :think-mark: and when MSF got rich enough that they didn't have to take every mission, the soldiers just became pawns of Big Boss, Kaz, and Ocelot. Virtually no different than serving the US or the USSR, which they end up doing anyways.

A world where soldiers are free and will always have place? The only person remotely free in this new scenario is Big Boss!!!!! :think-mark:

  • Civility [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    :yea:

    I haven't played the games but what you've described sounds like a good representation of the bandit warlord "We are a brotherhood of free warriors who left our armies because they betrayed us. The reason we fight is to build a new society with a place at the top for our noble warrior brotherhood" schtick.

    Bonus points for "other armies don't respect or understand us warriors because they're controlled by weak, corrupt, conniving civilians who will throw your lives away for their devious political machinations, unlike me, a warrior who would never do that to my brothers" while maintaining a military hierarchical command and pay structure with themself firmly on top and sending their warband to fight and die for cash, power and their own petty bullshit.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Bonus points for “other armies don’t respect or understand us warriors because they’re controlled by weak, corrupt, conniving civilians who will throw your lives away for their devious political machinations, unlike me, a warrior who would never do that to my brothers”

      Pretty much what Liquid Snake said in MGS1. (He was trying to resurrect Big Boss's vision of an independent nation of mercenaries)

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      In MGS the 'weak, corrupt, conniving civilians" are almost always the intelligence agencies of various nations. Big Boss generally doesn't rail against a corrupt civilian bureaucracy that won't let him win the war, the enemies are usually intelligence agencies and special forces groups that manipulate soldiers in to dying for causes that don't benefit them. Like the game manages to portray this bizarre hero warlord without making him a fascist.

      Big Boss is kind of a foil to fascism in some ways. He really, truly believes that all people (which in his world is just soldiers and spooks) are essentially equal, that human life is valuable (the game strongly encourages non-lethal methods without requiring them), and that governments should be honest, transparent, and responsive to their constituents (his chief reason for forming Outer Heaven is his belief that soldiers are mistreated and then abandonded by the powers they serve). Of course it's all weird and fucky because he creates a sort of anti-utopian military state, but Kojima never has the protagonists launch in to tirades about how soldiers should run civilian government or civilian government has betrayed the volk. Even when the civilian government does butt in it turns out the President and Senator Armstrong are super-soldiers themselves, fully part of the high level conspiracies that drive the MGS world.