LIQUID SNAKE BIOGRAPHY
DISCLAIMER: This biography is NOT limited to official material. It has been subject to my
own interpretations, speculations, and preferences. The intended narrative can be found in the Official Mission Handbook and the MGS Fandom Wiki.
REAL NAME: Eliab Cross
SEX: Male*
STATUS: Deceased
AGE: 32 at death
NATIONALITY: British-American (american-british-american..?)
HEIGHT: 183cm (182cm)
ADDITIONAL:
Liquid Snake, a twin to Solid Snake, was born June 12th, 1972 in Carlsbad, New Mexico, United States, conceived by means of analog cloning technology in culmination of a secret, government-facilitated eugenics project known as Les Enfants Terribles. They had been cloned using the DNA of Big Boss—at the time regarded as a hero for his service to the U.S. military—in an effort to produce soldiers endowed with his advantageous genetic traits. The twins were created to possess an identical genetic sequence, which had been modified as necessary, and, upon birth, were designated somewhat diverging methods of rearing in wait of the resultant effect. While Solid Snake was to be raised in the U.S., Liquid was sent to England, and designated a more intensive upbringing than that of his brother.
Anticipating from him an impressive career in espionage, the U.K.'s Security Service began offering Liquid's training as soon as he reached grade school. These teachings varied from those directly related to warfare, such as close-quarters battle, endurance training, and eventually use of arms, to social preparation in the realm of ettiquite and language. Despite the natural excellence he displayed in combat exercises, the response to his emotional leanings was harsh, at times abusive, and came at the repeated cost of his welfare, causing him to develop an intense contempt towards expectations of conformity and discipline. During this time, it tended that instructors of the humanities granted significantly more lenience to his sensibilities, and he particularly took to the study of Arabic.
In alignment with his satisfactory level of skill, the British government made plans to begin inserting Liquid into real combat environments. Between the years of 1983 to 1988, he was sent to participate in a number of conflicts throughout Africa, Asia, and South America, spending a graduating length of time in battle before returning to the U.K. for debriefing, further schooling, and preparation for upcoming deployment. His advanced capabilities became vastly more evident within this setting, though his already-problematic resistence to authority was exacerbated with the detrimental effect of warfare on his mental health. At the age of 16, he was promptly enlisted to the British Army on a 6-year commitment, though soon realizing himself wholly detached from the social culture therein. He became a frequent target of verbal and physical harrassment; although surpassing his fellow servicemen in terms of fighting ability, his acts of defense were consistently unsupported by those in authority, and he skirted threats of discharge.
In 1990, a freshly 18-year-old Liquid Snake became the new youngest person in history to pass selection for the Special Air Service. It was a mere few weeks after his recruitment that war erupted near the Persian Gulf, and he was chosen by the Secret Intelligence Service to act as a sleeper agent in Iraq, simultaneously working on behalf of the SAS to locate SCUD missle launchers for destruction. To maintain secrecy during correspondence with the SIS, he was assigned the codename "Liquid Snake" for use during this mission. Two months later, Liquid (who had unwittingly been betrayed by the SIS) was ambushed and captured by enemy paratroopers, taking him prisoner with the intent of execution. The resillience he demonstrated in the face of torture persuaded his captors to spare his life under the stipulation that he would follow their command; he spent the remainder of the Gulf War participating in operations with the Iraqi military until an uprising occurred in March 1991 involving mass army desertion, enabling his escape.
Having been paid no expectation of survival from the British government, Liquid was left entirely abandoned. Now holding more personal autonomy than ever previously, however, he retreated north from the insurrection in Hillah to reach Baghdad, where he settled—consequently, due to the inaccessibility of further travel, but incidentally allowing him to circumvent his remaining service commitment—evading detection from Iraqi loyalist forces as they remained distracted by rebel opposition. He sustained the use of his moniker, arriving at a general preference for it over his legal name, and established a career as a mercenary. It was through this work that he learned of FOXHOUND, a U.S. Army unit specializing in single-person infiltration missions.
Taking inspiration from FOXHOUND, he organized an underground militia comprised of fellow mercenaries, army deserters, and former resistence guerrillas among others, labeling this unit "Jackal-Hunting," of which he acted as operative and commander. In response to a deteriorating political outlook as of 1993, underlined as concerns of regime intervention grew with the group's success, Jackal-Hunting fled Iraq for a derilict compound near the village of Mahattat al Hafif in east Jordan, from which operatives were to be dispatched to neighboring areas as needed. Concurrently with a gain in notoriety came the circulation of intelligence among international agencies, fearing it a front for illicit Iraqi government activity, that implied its relation with a missing British service member and spy. Upon confirmation, the U.S. military launched a covert assault on the base in November 1994 to the end of forcibly retrieving Liquid, devastating the structure as with his comrades.
Although some deliberation was sparked over the possibility of defection, the British government ultimately allowed him his four years of pay, as well as, in accordance with his completion of service and missing status, a decent pension. Deeply bereft by the unprecidented dissolution of his unit, and with no incentive to earn money, he adopted a lifestyle of excess—as one that he had incorporated with temperance in Iraq and Jordan. His epoch of careless hedonism, with its corresponding expense on his condition, reached a close in 1996 following a presently uncredited incident of self-defense that took place outside a nightclub in downtown London. Rising to a functional extent of discipline, he pushed to reclaim his position as a mercenary.
The new height of prosperity Liquid had managed by 1999 was again diminished when news broke that the founder of FOXHOUND and leader of sovreign militia groups Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland, Big Boss, had been killed. Past the new year, he made a decision to invoke his birthright citizenship for the purpose of joining FOXHOUND, passing selection a few months later.