Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land?

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Ghost
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Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land?

Post by Ghost »

Hello all,

This is an opinion question regarding the original two Metal Gear games for the MSX, so for a moment ignore everything you know about the MGS versions that added to the story or even ret-conned some of it.

The Metal Gear saga 'started' in the 'fortified' nation or fortress of Outer Heaven where mercenaries under leadership of Big Boss had founded a nation in which soldiers would always have a place, and which was to be protected by Metal Gears (I assume that there would have been more in time and varieties of them).

When Solid Snake/the player defeated the mercenaries and their leader and destroyed Metal Gear Big Boss moved his designs to the Zanzibar province (not to confuse with the archipelago of the same name), taking the remnants of the Outer Heaven forces and material with him.
Later after the Mercenary War the province would become its own nation; Zanzibar Land.

To me Zanzibar Land always seemed like a more realistic vision of Big Boss' nation for soldiers, I always imagined it larger than Outer Heaven which I really had the idea of that it was a really big fortress but not so much of a nation.
Zanzibar Land felt like a serious attempt at a nation and not an army occupying a small region, with force as apparently some of the people in Outer Heaven were prisoners.

Most of the people in Zanzibar were there because they wanted to and believed in Big Boss' vision, even Pettrovich Madnar who originally was forced to make a Metal Gear for Big Boss but later built Metal Gear D out of free will when the rest of the world rejected his idea for a bipedal tank, Madnar would even have gone off to make Metal Gear G (if that hadn't been cut from the final game).

Even Schneider who was leader of the resistance against the Outer Heaven mercenaries would in time join Big Boss after having been captured and used for NASA's "Out-of-Earth Environment Special Force".

Big Boss also took the war orphans from Outer Heaven and other countries and give them a home at Zanzibar Land.

Of course some of the things were rather unrealistic like Zanzibar Land being the world's only nuclear armed nation after the rest of the world decided to scrape their nuclear arsenal (this was suppose to be the end of the series as Kojima had not planned any sequels).
I like to think that instead while other nations were dismantling most of their arsenals that Zanzibar Land was building up its number of nuclear weapons, that making them as significant threat; having such a large number and Metal Gear that the concept of deterrence would no longer work.

What do you think?

Edit: "Big Boss", not "Bog Boss", what next? "Boss Hog"
Last edited by Ghost on Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jack
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Re: Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land?

Post by Jack »

I'm not sure if I understood your question, maybe you are asking:

"Why all the MGS saga constantly refers to "Outer Heaven(s)", while the major accomplishment in that direction was clearly Zanzibar Land?"

If that's the question, I'd reply like this:

I agree with everything you said, Zanzibar Land is a much more advanced setting in terms of storytelling and of Big Boss vision... Which makes Zanzibar Land a new, better "Outer Heaven" perhaps?

I guess the series' insistence on Outer Heave was because it's the first attempt and because the name is cooler.
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Ghost
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:52 pm
Favorite Game: Difficult, I have so many
Kojima games owned: Metal Gear (MSX2)
Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake (MSX2 original :D)
Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
Metal Gear Solid 3
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
Metal Gear Solid (Gameboy Color, that's Ghost Babel;) )
Metal Gear Acid

Boktai (European)
Boktai (Japanese)
Boktai 2 (European)
Boktai 2 (USA)
Boktai 2 (Japanese)
Boktai 3
Lunar Knights

Hopefully soon Snatcher Mega CD
Location: Leeuwarden, the Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land?

Post by Ghost »

Hello Jack.

I guess at some point when I was writing this post I kind of lost track of what I wanted to ask.

What I meant and what you kind of said was; which of these 'fortress nations' felt better developed?
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Jack
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Re: Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land?

Post by Jack »

One thing that definitely sent a chill to my spine when I first had the chance to finally play MG2 (that is, with Subsistence!) was the whole orphans thing.

That is the classic Kojima touch - something that looks alien, out of context, and unnecessary in a spy story... Yet it was exactly the detail that added substance to Big Boss behavior.
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