When the Bombs Fell

You see, there was going to be a Father's Day post about the way the holiday coincided with the simultaneous No Kings Rallies, Trump Birthday Army 250th Anniversary Parade, Minnesota state government assasinations, and Israel's attacks on Iran. It was going to build on the themes of fatherhood and legacy in the Metal Gear franchise, and talk about how the villains are generally motivated by a need to force change for the benefit of future generations. It was going to build on my previous Father's Day post about breaking the cycles of paternal abuse in Metal Gear, along with the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. And then a series of unforeseen real-world issues came up in my life - nothing catastrophic, but all things that needed to be dealt with immediately... and the post was postponed. No big deal, I thought, Father's Day can be a starting point, but certainly doesn't need to be the focus. I could keep going in the direction I'd already charted.

 And then we, the United States, also bombed Iran. Now things feel... different. 

As someone who was (legally) an adult for post 9/11 buildup to the Iraq war, it's all painfully familiar. The instance, that, despite the conclusions of experts and anyone else who would actually know, there was a real threat, and it was imminent. The mad rush media rush to make it appear that there was a consensus, including declarations that the population of the suddenly-dangerous country were perfectly okay with being bombed if it meant they could be rid of their despotic government. But this speed run feels perfunctory, not bothering to actually build public buy-in, and leaving populace and government alike in a state of exhausted nebulous confusion - a Trump Haze more extreme than the ones surrounding tariffs or the legality and execution of ICE's crimes against humanity. The President would make his mind in two weeks, they said.

And then we bombed Iran.

This in itself shouldn't feel unusual. It's horrifying, sure, and monstrous that we're allowed to just kill people in other countries we aren't even at war with... but we've done it before. Trump's done it before, to an Iranian target, even. The scale is different, of course, with the first-ever offensive use of the huge GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOB) bombs. But the motivations are different this time as well, transparently at the behest of an Israeli government expanding its ever-growing war against the region... if not the entire world, to keep its nightmarish genocide going and prime minister away from legal consequences It all feels desperate, pathetic, and sad in a way it didn't before. One old white man who's staying in office to avoid prison got another old white man staying in office to avoid prison to carry out destruction on a level he couldn't have on his own, all while overseeing the systemic extermination of an already-crushed and emasculated people. An extermination going on before our very eyes, that we are told we must not only sanction, but actively support, lest we be considered antisemitic terrorist proxies.

Recently, I have been haunted by a phrase you hear in the opening of the first song on Godspeed You! Black Emperor's first album: we are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine... and the machine is bleeding to death.

But, just as with the abandoned Father's Post, I still find myself thinking about Metal Gear. Not too surprising, I guess, given that the series and maybe Wolfenstein are the closest thing I play to war games. Well, they're games about war. Well, they're games about soldiers (who are also spies), but usually far outside the context of what we generally picture as "warfare." But they're also, unambiguously and consistently since the very first game, about nuclear weapons and their relationship to the people who wield them to a degree I don't think I've seen in any other post-Cold War media. To be sure, a Japanese series is going to come from a different perspective on nuclear weaponry than one coming from the country that's used those weapons on Japan. But, as someone who grew up with hand-me-down media made during the Cold War, Metal Gear's treatment of nukes as the greatest of all possible human crimes has always rung true to me. These are the nightmare creations that end worlds. The titular Metal Gears are essentially bipedal nuclear launch platforms in the form of giant robots. Or in the words of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid (1988), a "nuclear-equipped walking death-mobile." (Translator Jeremy Blaustein had a gift for phrasing that was sadly lost in later games.) When the series starts incorporating prequels to portray Big Boss's descent into villainy, his choice to keep a nuclear weapon for his own is one of the major departures. But rather than keep this fall from grace offscreen, it takes place before the player's very eyes - we get to see his reasoning, and that of the people advising him. The motivation to become the worst of all possible things comes from a single word: "deterrence."

It's a word I think we'd be hearing a lot more in discussions of Iran and its nuclear program, were we talking about any other country. It's also something that feels like a relic of a very different era, even earlier than the 1970s and 80s in which Peace Walker and MGSV are set. The idea that peace can only come from having terrible weapons on-hand, from ever-growing arsenals of munitions that could only cause death on untold scales... it seems like something from the mind of Dr. Strangelove (the character in the Kubrick film, not the one in Metal Gear who uses it as a nickname/alias) in the Cold war's early days that we'd later all realize to be pure folly, self-enforcing and inherently escalatory. At least, that was the case until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the global arrangement of power shifted. Russia's nuclear capabilities were a factor to be considered in any involvement, along with Ukraine's lack of such weapons. They were double-cursed, perhaps, as the victims of Russian-led Soviet nuclear hubris via Chernobyl - damned on the one hand by their lack of nuclear weapons, damned on the other by the horrific results of nuclear carelessness. Deterence, as a concept if not an actual term, must have been on the mind of the leadership of every non-nuclear country since then. After all, they could be the next ones rolled over by a nuclear power itching to expand its territory, flex its muscles, or simply stage an effective distraction.

So, just as I saw Big Boss's reasons to pursue nuclear capability for his small, renegade nation, I can see those of Iran, as well. They have their own nuclear-equipped neighbor getting away with ever-more expansion. Which makes it all the more frustrating that this is something that was so close to being dealt  with. Personally, I was excited by Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and hoped it was the first step to opening up the pariah nation and gradually breaking down their theocratic government through culture and exchange. This wasn't to be, of course, Donald Trump destroyed the treaty as soon as he possibly could, perhaps to some degree out of some Boomer-brained fixation on Iran as nefarious villains who couldn't be trust, but most certainly out of a personal hatred of Barack Obama and his accomplishments. Either way, of course, it's racist as all hell, and it all led up to the events of this weekend. We bombed Iran because an old white guy didn't like the work done by his Black predecessor, and was largely pushed into it by another old white guy. No massive conspiracy, no 5D chess.

That's an aspect of Metal Gear that feels far less relevant than it once did: the paranoia, the plans within plans, the machinations... maybe I, too, find myself longing for something, even something evil, to be in control. Otherwise, the chaos and damage caused by a few random, powerful men acting out of ostensible self-interest. But, as it went on, Metal Gear had some of that, too. If you take the time to listen to all the tapes you find throughout The Phantom Pain, you find the story of elaborate, grand plans torn apart by petty grudges and personal failures. In the main plot, Huey Emmerich arguably causes more damage than even Skull Face and XOF - and he does it purely out of self-interest and the pursuit of his own desires. He's the only one not building out some grand scheme to reshape the world to his ideals. He's also the biggest proponent of acquiring a nuclear weapon on the name of "deterrence." He is, unquestionably, the biggest piece of shit in the entire series... and Donald Trump has me agreeing with him. Not Trump's greatest crime, perhaps, but one I'll take personally. I see the position Iran is in, and I find myself agreeing with Huey Emmerich's sentiments, and that is deeply uncomfortable.

Which, ironically, is a lot of what I like about the game. It takes an approach totally opposite to the pat explanations and mythos absurdities of Guns of the Patriots. It's intentionally confusing and uncomfortable, something made only more so by its unfinished nature. And that's one of the amazing things about art, including games - they give you reference points for when you experience similar feelings in the real world. It's something I'll always go after, and something I'll always want to talk about... even as the bombs fall.

- B 

Send questions, comments, and Atari 2600 games that made you question the nature of morality to neversaydice20@gmail.com.