6. Skullface Plans To Erase The English Language, Caused Major Zero's Vegetative State
The strategy guide goes into considerable detail about Skullface's back story, that he was born in Hungary, and the secret weapons factory where his parents worked was bombed, causing him to be gravely injured by fleeing employees who trampled on him. Skullface only survived due to radical parasitic therapy, though it has also given him severe nervous system damage as a side effect, such that he can't feel pain anymore. Skullface was then hired by Major Zero to watch over Big Boss from as far back as the third game's Operation Snake Eater and ensure that his missions were successful. However, Skullface grew to dislike both Zero and Big Boss, and when he found out that Zero was helping develop The Patriot AI, he worked with Code Talker (the old man briefly seen in earlier trailers) to develop a parasite that mutates people's vocal chords and stops them from speaking, in an apparent attempt to wipe out the English language. This of course fits in with the "we won't take their lives, we'll take their tongues" dialogue from the
Elegia trailer. And finally, though it was speculated by some that Zero might be Skullface, Skullface is in fact the cause for Major Zero's vegetative state by the time MGS4 rolls around: the information Paz gave him during Ground Zeroes allowed Skullface to hunt down Zero and infect him with the parasite, slowly shutting down his cognitive functions.