firemansam

His AU history here.

Since the start of Capital H, Raiden's journey has largely been one of personal growth. A lot of the actual events are kind of routine and immaterial to his life. Mostly fighting supervillains and aggressively avoiding how the things that have happened to him have affected him. But we'll talk about that more indepth below.

He'll be coming in right after some time travel nonsense, after helping to save the future he'll end up on the ship instead of back home. What a nuisance, right.

Raiden - at this point in his life - is probably someone who's easier to describe in terms of who he was and who he is.

Up until a few years ago, he was a fairly excitable guy. Having suppressed his memories of his life as a child soldier, he affected the personality of a rookie. Initially inexperienced and prone to outbursts. Occasionally cynical and sarcastic, he was pushy when he felt he was being messed around or given ridiculous orders, but ultimately obedient to the chain of command. After meeting Snake, he began to trust his instincts more and learned to consider the ideals of freedom on a personal and universal scale, and he began to question what exactly it was that he was fighting for.

These things only started to grow as it became more and more evident that the mission wasn't exactly on the up and up. After the truth of his life came flooding out, (his childhood, his relationship with TRIDENT and George, the true nature of his mission,) he started to unravel a bit at the seams. Finally being able to pin down the source of his nightmares he was filled with a new sense of self-loathing and began to question the worth of his life. He also also began questioning his sense of reality; finding out about how much of his life was a lie having been just about too much to handle.

He seemingly came together a bit after that oil rig mission, deciding that despite all his evil nonsense, George made some good points about living honestly and free of influence. He decided give his relationship with Rose a real try, free of pretence and subterfuge. Unfortunately, everything he'd learned and experienced on that mission was too much and he never sought treatment - instead he begun drinking heavily and started to get into fights. His relationship with Rose understandably began to suffer and he chose to leave her. Subsequently, due to a need to do something worthwhile with his life, he went back to work. AND THEN EVERYTHING WENT TITS UP.

Raiden's torture at the hands of TRIDENT left him a fairly different person. He became morose, withdrawn and stoic. He threw away his name - Jack - deciding to only go by Raiden now as he was officially little more than a weapon. Though he had always had this thought in mind after learning about his past from Rose and George and the truth behind his name (his real name, Jack, having been the name the Allies used for the Mitsubishi JM2 Raiden in WWII, he has since chosen to live up almost entirely to this name after receiving what he likely considers the physical manifestation of what he always was; his exoskeleton.

In a way, he considers his personal quest for freedom to be over. To have been a a farce. He doesn't believe he'll ever really get away from the things he's done and the things that were done to him, but he'll keep working for that better world. If there is anything in this world that Raiden is willing to die for, it is the rights of people - or, more significantly, him and the people he loves - to live their lives free of fear and control, with genuine free will. It's the only way he knows to separate himself from the plans that have been forced upon him since he was a child; by fighting against them. He even believes that if they can get rid of TRIDENT and other villains like them, he'll be free too.

He's closed off, more than anything. Raiden is painfully terrified of being alone because he hasn't got or ever had, in his opinion, a family. Has always been alone. So he shut down the part of himself that had to worry about that. He has - in his own mind - always been alone. The kind of person who can be picked up and tossed aside as the situation demands. It's easier to keep people at arm's length, rather than deal with the eventual heartbreak when they're done. But he doesn't want to be alone either; just being a bit lonely of your own volition is better than being left to the wayside.

Raiden considers himself to be somewhat inconsequential as a person. He's well aware of his worth as a soldier and a tool, but as a person he has an incredibly low opinion of himself. It's a common thread that keeps coming up in his life - the idea of himself as a weapon rather than as a person. Even though it's pushed to an extreme over recent events, it's obviously a feeling that's always been there. That he's not much more than just some soldier and a dirty mark on history. He's never really shaken that view of himself despite his best attempts to leave his past behind. He wants desperately to be something more, something better - which is a large part of why he takes so much to Snake when they first meet and why he's so fiercely loyal to CONDOR. Because Snake's a hero, these other operatives are heroes - but he never quite figures it out.

He doesn't relate well to people on a personal level - he has really trouble connecting beyond talking shop, given his fragmented sense of self and his new "no nonsense, all business" approach to life. He has a soft spot for children, and reacts with incredible violence to people intentionally putting children in danger, but beyond that. Nah. Personal relationships are bullshit as far as he is concerned. It's weakness, it's setting yourself up to get hurt, and also he doesn't feel like he deserves it. He'll even hastily correct anyone calling him Jack. It's all Raiden, all the time.

Whilst he can appear - by all intents - to be incredibly brave and selfless, it's not difficult to argue that a lot of this comes from the fact that he doesn't feel he has any worth as a person. He's lost his worry of dying or of never leaving a mark on the world since he internalised the view that he's a weapon to be used and discarded. He is, however, fairly honourable in his approach. Whilst he may not hold his life as something to be valued, he is not entirely willing to throw it away uselessly. He holds tight to his ideals and his bonds - if he's little more than a weapon, then he is a weapon that will be used to fight the good fight, as it were.

In terms of canon differences, the largest is probably the lack of one (1) Solid Snake. It's certainly the most substantial difference. To make him work in the setting with the absence of one in the game, Snake had to be more of a peripheral influence in his life rather than the constant he is in the game. Alongside this is the fact that he hasn't been manipulated his entire life by a shadow government using him as part of a plan to develop a new world order so much as a few agents working for a supervillain organisation, so he's less paranoid and anti-government than he otherwise would be. Nor is he working for a clandestine organisation who were actually a fake version of a real clandestine organisation that he idolised - the things about his life that are actually real and tangible far outweigh the things that aren't, rather than the reverse. Whilst derealisation and depersonalisation are everpresent issues for him to rassle, he has some less significant triggers in that regard than in the games.

The presence of organisations like CONDOR and Alpha Force also allowed him to place more faith and trust in his fellow man. Though he still believes himself to be alone as a person, he's not part of a fringe group fighting a clandestine war against a global superpower here. In fact the status quo is significantly more positive, so there's not such a sense of "if I can't do this, it's over," all the time. I mean, those situations happen sometimes probably, but it's not a constant and it's not always on the shoulders of him and like two other people.

Raiden also has, in his time since returning to work after that whole TRIDENT kerfuffle, started to recover a little of who he was before. There were a few significant things though, like reconnecting with Newt - a friend of his from before he was captured by TRIDENT - which in a lot of ways forced him to acknowledge, if only a little, how much he's changed. He also took a young cyborg (Milly Baelheit) under his wing, a combination of his desire to protect anyone young and seeing something familiar in her. This, in turn, kind of forced him to start recovering pieces of himself. The parts that allowed him to see himself as a person and to be close to people. It comes with a side of Raiden's brand of overprotective "I will fucking murder anyone who ever hurts you" friendship, but it's still growth. He even makes jokes sometimes!

Also, dude. Significantly less cyborg ninjas turning up and dropping cryptic hints while people are on important missions.

He'll definitely assume it's some sort of capture to begin with, and possibly for a little while after. The tech in him is relatively valuable, after all. There's gonna be some accusations for a little while, but given he's in the ass-end of space with no idea how space travel even works, he'll settle down. If he can get on the ship and convince them he's playing along he can investigate and try a jailbreak, you see.

Raiden's actual powers are relatively low key; he has heightened endurance, improved healing - though not a healing factor per se, quicker reflexes, and he's slightly stronger than a dude his size should really be. The kind of stuff that's incredibly easy to pass off as just being "gifted." This is all augmented and amped up by his new body, which has made him noticeably superhuman in terms of pure, physical ability.

He's also fitted up with an internal comm system that is... functionally useless here, and a visor that can function as night vision, thermal imaging, and binoculars. Though only one at a time. What is this, the future?

More of note, potentially, is his skill as a soldier and an agent. Given his childhood, it's no surprise he has a natural aptitude for fighting and navigating battles. He has a heightened aptitude for this kind of thing. Which is a real sore spot for him, but also means he's been incredibly proficient with a variety of weapons and in hand-to-hand combat for a long time. Over 20 years, in fact. His training with CONDOR and some on-the-job work with Snake have also made him pretty skilled in stealth and espionage. You wouldn't think a heavy-ass robot could move silently through the jungle, but you'd be wrong.

STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
-Most forms of combat -Weapons -Stealth -Espionage -Straight up murder -Heightened strength/stamina/endurance/senses -Self-flagellation	-Interpersonal skills -Kinda temperamental -Fragmented sense of self -Interpersonal skills -Hero complex -Self-sacrificial streak a mile wide -Kinda bad with authority -Self-flagellation

My name is Raiden. I'm a CONDOR agent. If that means anything to you, please get in touch ASAP.

Similarly, if the terms West Coast Trailblazers or Alpha Force mean anything to you, please contact me.

Otherwise, I'm looking for anyone experienced with cybernetics. The tech may well be alien to you, but if you can figure it out, I'd be really thankful for some of your time. And if there's anyone in the market for a sparring partner, I'd like to keep on form for however long I'm here.

[It's a good thing no one can see the pause in text- he hesitates on it a long while, wanting to ask for specific people by name before he changes his mind. What are the odds, right? So eventually he settles on:]

Also, what are the punishments like for not wearing your uniform? Hypothetically?