Morpho was the callsign of a helicopter pilot in the Militaires Sans Frontières, who flew one of the group's HP-48 Krokodil gunships during the 1970s. He and a co-pilot were dispatched to retrieve MSF commander Big Boss, along with any VIPs and prisoners that had been rescued, from a United States prison facility in Cuba, during MSF's operations there.
Biography[]
On December 7, 1974, Morpho was dispatched to retrieve Hideo, an MSF Intel Team agent who had requested emergency extraction. Morpho hailed Hideo by radio, who eventually responded. MSF deputy commander Kazuhira Miller gave Morpho the go-ahead to make contact, but static interference with the communications resulted in him being unable to decipher Hideo's location.
Morpho and copilot in the gunship's cockpit.
After spotting a flare, Morpho directed the chopper toward Hideo's location, with Big Boss providing cover fire against the alerted base personnel. After the enemy resistance was cleared from Hideo's path, Morpho proceeded to escort the four-wheel drive he had hijacked, to the base's heliport. However, the car was hit with a missile, requiring Morpho to land the chopper so that Big Boss could recover the injured agent. Morpho was forced to ascend into the air when an APC burst onto the helipad, before Big Boss could safely board with Hideo. After both Big Boss and Hideo were secure aboard the chopper, Morpho proceeded to return home, escaping pursuit by an enemy UTH-66 Blackfoot chopper in the process.
On January 9, 1975, Morpho extracted Big Boss from the U.S. base after it became apparent that it was to be bombed by two unidentified aircraft, rescuing him just in time.
On March 16, 1975, Morpho was assigned to recover Big Boss, Chico and Paz Ortega Andrade from the base in Cuba, once the former had rescued the latter two. After recovering them, Morpho then headed back to Mother Base, but was unable to make contact due to the base having fallen under heavy attack by the military group XOF. With Big Boss's help, he then extracted Miller and another surviving MSF soldier, before one of the struts collapsed due to C4 being rigged on its legs. Morpho then lost control of the chopper, when a bomb planted inside Paz's body detonated outside the cabin, causing it to collide with an XOF chopper in mid-flight. Afterwards, Morpho was replaced by pilots who used the callsign Pequod.
Behind the scenes[]
Concept art of the 1975 helicopter crew, featuring the pilot (right).
Morpho is the callsign used by the MSF helicopter pilot in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. If Morpho's chopper is shot down during the mission, his role is replaced by an identical pilot of the same name and voice. In the E3 2014 demo of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a character identified himself as Morpho. In the E3 2015 demo and the final version of the game, however, they showed a new voice identifying himself as Pequod. Morpho is shown in two group photos standing next to Miller, Big Boss and Venom Snake. His callsign is shown on the back of one of the group photos which implies that he is canonically a single character.
Morpho was first identified in the TGS Daytime demo of Ground Zeroes, as well as two later gameplay videos posted by the Spanish video gaming site Hobby Consolas. The first was nearing the end, where they show the player what happens when a player shoots down one of their own choppers in friendly fire. The second was midway through, where they show Big Boss delivering a prisoner to the chopper. In the daytime demo, Snake after retrieving a tape from a watchtower, attempted to call in Morpho in, although because it was deployed at a high risk area, the chopper ended up shot down, forcing Big Boss to escape via a stolen jeep.
If the player has Morpho perform an attack run on the base in "Destroy the Anti-Air Emplacements," just as Miller reports the incoming aircraft attack, Morpho will break off and demand that the player hurry and board to escape.[1]
Appearances[]
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (photographs)
- Metal Gear Survive (flashbacks; non-canonical)
Notes and references[]
- ^ Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Kojima Productions (2014).
Morpho: This is Morpho. Aborting attack run and heading for nearest LZ. Don't keep me waiting - get on board as soon as I touch down!