The original Wisemen's Committee prior to their deaths.
The Wisemen's Committee was the first group of the Philosophers.
History
Origins
The Wisemen's Committee was a secret group of the most wealthy and powerful minds from the United States, Russia, and China who formed the Philosophers in a secret meeting following the first World War.[note 1]
The Boss's father was a member of the Wisemen's Committee and later revealed the nature of the organization to his daughter, but was killed shortly afterwards by the Philosophers. After the last of the original members died during the 1930s, the organization began to run out of control, and the Wisemen's Committee degenerated into a mere shell of its former self.[note 2]
With the deaths of the Wisemen's Committee, tensions rose between the three feuding remnants of the Philosophers, becoming the hidden face of the Cold War as each group attempted to concentrate power in their own nation. After World War II, the three branches of the Philosophers start to split up, which brings even more tension to the war.
The Manhattan Incident
- See also: Tanker Incident and the Big Shell Incident
The "Wisemen's Committee" from the Patriots.
Decades later in 2009, Solidus Snake originally planned to steal data from Arsenal Gear regarding the "Wisemen's Committee," the twelve supposed members of the Patriots. Philanthropy later retrieved this information from Arsenal, but Otacon discovered that all twelve members of had been dead for about a hundred years, and that "one of them was [Philanthropy's] biggest contributor." Solid Snake deduced that the information was false and was only a fake lead. The members of this Wisemen's Committee were most likely those of the original that founded the Philosophers.[1]
Behind the scenes
The Wisemen's Committee is first mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In the game's script, the group is also referred to as the Twelve Elders and the Inner Circle.[2]
The Wisemen's Committee is possibly named after a group of government officials called the Wise Men featured in the 1986 novel of the same name who were responsible for several things during the Cold War, including developing the containment policy of dealing with the Communist bloc and crafting institutions and initiatives such as NATO, the World Bank, and the Marshall Plan.
In a flashback in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, only eleven members of the Wisemen's Committee are shown. In addition, a woman is shown to be one of them despite Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots showing that all twelve members of the Wisemen's Committee were men.
Notes
- ^ During her final monologue in Metal Gear Solid 3, The Boss states that the original Philosophers consisted of the true holders of power in the United States, the Republic of China and the "newly formed" Soviet Union. This would put the date of formation in or around December 1922. However, no exact date is given beyond "early in the twentieth century."
- ^ In the cutscene where The Boss explains the origins of the Philosophers and her past to Naked Snake, she and her father were shown fading away last among the members who died, implying that The Boss's father may have been the very last founding member to die, and that the people who killed him may have been the ones who inherited the organization.
References
- ^ This is further supported in the segment detailing the founding of the Philosophers during Liquid Ocelot's monologue in the climax of Act 5, Old Sun, which showed the pictures of the "Wisemen's Committee" members from Metal Gear Solid 2.
- ^ The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan (2002).