Twist #4: Selection for Societal Sanity
The Artificial Intelligence created to manage the all of the digital information in the world needed to be properly proven before it could be finalized, which meant that it had to trigger and conclude a complex series of events according to a pre-defined model. The “Solid Snake Simulation” was simply the chosen model; a worthy exercise of Arsenal Gear’s capabilities! This hyper-Machiavellian master plan is also dubbed the “S3 Plan”, but this time it stands for “Selection for Societal Sanity”!
By using Arsenal Gear, the Patriots’ wanted to create a self-aware A.I. for the purpose of shaping human evolution through information control. They see themselves as the protectors of a world which is too weak and incompetent to sort out the truth from lies. They say that humanity will rapidly halt the progress of civilization by simply leaving the Internet unregulated! That’s right: the most powerful secret society in the world is afraid of the Internet, because it does too much empower stupid people. Clearly this game was way ahead of its time.
The reason Raiden was chosen as the candidate to undergo the S3 Plan? Listen to it for yourself…
It’s enough to make you forget how the game even started, way back on that Tanker.
And… now you know the main story of Sons of Liberty.
Whew!
Ultimately, it was all an exercise to shape human consciousness using information control, and Raiden was simply the tool chosen to play the part of the hero. As for the elaborate recreation of Shadow Moses, it was not only deliberate, but apparently detailed to the point of being completely implausible.
So far I’ve avoided commentating on the story, already leaving out a lot of smaller side stories to help condense the whole thing. I hope you followed along, because now we’ll take a look at some of the plot holes.
Before that, though, let me say that the whole point of knowing the story–and how it doesn’t make sense–isn’t about mocking or complaining at all; in fact, I will argue that the game has a brilliant story by the end. The story and its plot holes are all part of a bigger and much more ingenious plan by Kojima.