Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015 Video Game)

James Horan: Skull Face

Photos 

Quotes 

• Skull Face : I was born in a small village. I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed along with the words they made me speak. With each change, I changed, too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong. Words can kill.

• Skull Face : Such a lust for revenge! WHO?

• Skull Face : America is a country of liberty, a meeting of immigrants. Instead of simply assimilating, its citizens live alongside others. So the major sought a system that used information - words, to control the subconscious.

• Kazuhira Miller : [Over Radio]  Just go along with him for now. We're ready to fight if it comes to that. That's our leverage against him - our deterrent. He doesn't want a war on his hands.

  Skull Face : [Skull Face talks Snake into following him]  Whatever the Navajo told you... it's just one possible solution derived by Cipher. My will is different. I've known you since your time at Langley. I've long been the other side of your coin. 1964, Soviet territory. FOX's first mission. Any mess you made, I was there to clean up. You completed your task - and admirably. The "information" you returned was far more than enough to fill our pockets. With it, our futures became - more or less - set in stone. And then the major came to me with an idea. "Washington doesn't know how to spend money," he said. "I'd like to... redirect it". His goal was an organization dedicated solely - covertly - to supporting America. Cipher. You know the rest. To him, it was mourning - the loss of his friend. Or rather, an act of revenge. On the world, but America most of all.

  [Skull Face, Snake, and four XOF soldiers step into a cargo elevator which goes to a lower level] 

  Skull Face : America is a country of liberty. A meeting of immigrants. Instead of simply assimilating, its citizens live along side others. Their roots are varied. Diverse. America's never been made up of just one people. But he tried to forge a single consciousness. For it, and from it. The idea that every citizen would use free will to unite behind their country... Unilateralism like that can't be entrusted to any one individual. So the major sought a system which used information, words, to control the "subconscious".

  [Skull Face and his XOF soldiers lead Snake out of the elevator to their jeep convoy] 

  Skull Face : [Snake and Skull Face climb into the back of a jeep, and are driven out of OKB Zero]  To unite America and the entire world. The major thought this was his friend's will. But I think he never understood what she wanted. Before he ever walked, or cried - even before he was born - his mother tongue was English. He doesn't know the pain of losing his own language. Not yet. He cannot understand her will. I do. I was born in a small village. I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed, along with the words they made me speak. Words are... peculiar. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong... War changed me - and not only my visage. Words can kill. I was invaded by words, burrowing and breeding inside me. A philosopher once said, "It is no nation we inhabit, but a language." "Make no mistake, our native tongue is our true fatherland." My fatherland - my truth was stolen from me. And so was my past. All that's left is the future. And mine is revenge. On those who'd leech off the words of their fellow man. This is what I learned from the major. And then it hit me. It was he who should feel my wrath. He and the code he chose as basis for control. Language codes, information codes - beamed all around us - genetic codes spanning history. By controlling the codes, Cipher... Zero intends to unify the world. Codes implanted into our heads, sucking our minds dry as it spreads from one host to the next. A parasite upon the earth. That is what Zero is. As one born into this world, he's afflicted. I hold him responsible for killing my freedom. Killing all traces of my past... Killing any promise of a future... We are all but dead men forced to walk upon this earth. A world reduced to Zero. Cipher plans to use its codes to control the world. They think they can.

  [He pulls out a small canister] 

  Skull Face : And the "mother tongue" of all those codes is English.

  [He opens the canister, revealing two vials and a space for a third one which is empty] 

  Skull Face : The word became flesh. The final parasite.

  [Skull Face grabs and holds onto one of these vials and shows it to Snake] 

  Skull Face : It knows English. An English strain of the vocal cord parasite.

  [He puts it back in it's canister and closes it before setting it down beside him] 

  Skull Face : I will exterminate the English language. With this, I'll rid the world of infestation. All men will breathe free again - reclaim their past, present, and future. This is no ethnic cleanser. It is a "liberator," to free the world from Zero. Let the world be. Sans lingua franca, the world will be torn asunder. And then, it shall be free. People will suffer, of course - a phantom pain. The world will need a new common tongue. A language of nukes. My Metal Gears shall be the thread by which all countries are bound together, in equality. No words will be needed. Every man will be forced to recognize his neighbor. People will swallow their pain. They will link lost hands. And the world will become one. This war is peace.

  [the last two verses of "Sins of the Father" are heard on the radio while Snake and Skull Face continue to face each other with no words spoken] 

  Skull Face : [Toward the end of the song, the jeep arrives at the Serek Power Plant]  When the world witnesses Sahelanthropus, the hands of the doomsday clock will roll on, regardless of Zero. Sahelanthropus will take the first giant step into a brave new world. It is the bell with which a world - trodden upon by words - declares its independence.

• Skull Face : With this, I'll rid the world of infestation - Sans Lingua Franca. The world will be torn asunder and then, it shall be free.

• Skull Face : The chain of retaliation is what will truly bind this world together as one.

• Skull Face : Burn with the rest of them.

• [First Lines] 

  Skull Face : You look well-rested, Big Boss... My, my, how you've changed. You became a demon for such little weapons as that?

  [Chuckles] 

  Skull Face : Well, I'm sure you'll see the bigger picture eventually. If you get out of here alive. Rest in peace, this time. I'll see you in Hell! "Boss!"

• Skull Face : You too have known loss. And that loss torments you still.

  [his XOF guards stand before Snake ready to fire] 

  Skull Face : [Skull Face lowers their weapons]  You hope hatred... might someday replace the pain. But it never goes away. It makes a man hideous inside and out.

  Skull Face : [removes his hat]  Wouldn't you agree? We both are demons. Our humanity won't return. You. Me. We've no place to run, nowhere to hide. And that is why I will show you my demon.

  Skull Face : [puts on his hat]  Follow me, Big Boss.