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| “ | I have a dream. That one day every person in this nation will control their own destiny. A land of the truly free, damnit. A nation of action, not words, ruled by strength, not committee! Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people! Where every man is free to think - to act - for himself! F*** all these limp-d*** lawyers and chickenshit bureaucrats. F*** this 24-hour Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit! F*** American pride! F*** the media! F*** ALL OF IT! America is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it - we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes, a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged and the strongest will thrive - free to live as they see fit, they'll make America great again! | „ |
| ~ Senator Steven Armstrong's speech. |
| “ | Nanomachines, son. | „ |
| ~ Armstrong's most famous quote as he demonstrates his powers to Raiden. |
Senator Steven Armstrong is the main antagonist of the 2013 videogame Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE. When Armstrong was young, he used to play college football for the University of Texas, in which he excelled at the game. Years later, he later joined the United States Navy, which sacrificed his chances of going pro. By the time of 2018, Armstrong became a senator for the state of Colorado.
He was voiced by Alistair Duncan.
History
Political career
Sometime in 2016, Senator Armstrong delivered a speech to get his approval ratings up. His speech was his way of expressing his beliefs. Armstrong also had some involvement with the Desperado PMSC and its activities, to which his speechwriter warned him that he would appear before a grand jury had his connection to the group been revealed, although he himself believed that they will not do a thing in either case, as he believed that the people would not care due to believing that money is the only thing that truly matters.
Recruiting Jetstream Sam
Armstrong fighting Sam.
Direct involvement in Desperado activities
Two years later, Armstrong inspected a Desperado research lab in Mexico alongside with Desperado's leader; Sundowner, regarding that the transportation of children's brains in cyborg head casings before delivering them to World Marshal for the Sears Program was processing as planned. However, Armstrong also instructed them to shut down the facility, and move the child's brains to another facility as he had suspicion that someone else was snooping around. One of the scientist asked Armstrong what to do with the other children that were attending the Sears Program. To which, Armstrong to him to kill them, as they had elsewhere to go, no one will miss them, and he claims that he is doing a public favor. He also plotted for Operation Tecumseh, which was a plan that would start a war with Pakistan under false pretenses while President Hamilton is visiting the country with Pakistani President Farooq Salam for a peace talk.
Confronting Raiden
Armstrong proves to be too much for Raiden.
After EXCELSUS was destroyed, Armstrong proceeded to fight Raiden. His nanomachine-infused body, which enabled Armstrong with superhuman-like strength and durability, completely overwhelmed Raiden, not even flinching once from the many hits the latter had landed on him. He even broke Raiden's sword, leaving Raiden to his mercy. During the battle, he explained that his motives of wanting to remake America. He believed that America was rotten to the core, and that he wanted to reestablish America as a world where people fight for their own reasons, instead of fighting for the government. Raiden then deduced that he was not merely a "greedy politician" as he initially thought, but stated that he was completely insane due to his reference to culling the weak and having the strong be free.
However, just when Armstrong was about to kill Raiden, an injured Blade Wolf saved him by bringing to him Samuel Rodrigues' sword. Angered, Armstrong kicked Blade Wolf away, although not before Blade Wolf threw the sword to Raiden.
Armstrong about to confront Raiden.
Armstrong's death, caused World Marshal's funding being crippled. But despite this, World Marshal itself still continued to exist, and his plan of re-orchestrating a new War on Terror managed to succeeded.
Personality
| “ | Don't f*** with this senator! | „ |
| ~ Steven Armstrong to Raiden. |
Armstrong is shown to be extremely nationalistic and Libertarian individual. He shows this by expressing the desire to "reclaim the American dream" by instigating another American Revolution after Liquid Ocelot's insurrection and the Patriots' actions that weakened America. His intense patriotism was fully demonstrated while he was fighting Raiden, by declaring that if Raiden was not for the United States and his goals, he was effectively against it. He also told Raiden to feel the wrath of the USA, and saying that Uncle Sam desired Raiden's death.
Despite his patriotism, Armstrong held great resentment towards the "current" America; criticizing the war economy, the mass media, as well as the notion of "American pride", and it became his motivation to enact the revival of the "War on Terror" in hopes of using war as a business to get elected as the next U.S. President, thereby granting him enough power so that he would be able to end war as a business in its entirety. He was also shown to be extremely cynical in regards to his views of people and especially his electorate, stating that people wouldn't care if a bad act happened or if there was information control as long as there's money involved or if it's at least given a good spin, such as effective scapegoating. He believed this could be achieved if he could turn everyone into a cyborg, even innocent children (much to Raiden's chagrin).
Because of his power both in politics and combat thanks to his nanomachines and his influence as senator, Armstrong is highly arrogant and he held a sarcastic attitude along with belief to notion "might makes right" to the boot. In this regard, he viewed those who were "strong" as the ones deserving of dictating the laws of society, and that the "weak" should be purged so as to create a perfect world. His arrogance also occasionally lead him to do brash and reckless things, such as deliberately provoking Raiden by sending Blade Wolf away as soon as the wolf-like robot sends the Cyborg Ninja Sam's Muramasa.
Powers and Abilities
- Nano-Active Blood: With his blood being primed with Nanomachines, he has superhuman abilities, far surpassing any cybernetically enhanced being.
- Artificial Heart: All of these abilities are controlled by his artificial heart. Destruction of the artificial heart depowered him, and he died before he could heal from his injuries.
- Energy Absorption: Steven Armstrong's main ability is allowing him to absorb and store energy. He is also shown that he can levitate and throw vehicles as he is absorbing their energy.
- Superhuman Strength: This grants him superhuman strength, enough to lift large concrete structures and even toss them.
- Superhuman Durability: He can use his Nanomachines to harden his body in response to physical injuries.
- Superhuman Speed: During his fight with Raiden, he has shown to perform shot dashes at superhuman speeds.
- Superhuman Stamina: He was able to physically perform and fight for a long time without any form of tardiness.
- Pyrokinesis: These Nanomachines also allows him to generate fireballs and create fiery shockwaves.
- Accelerated Healing: The nanomachines inside his body allows a high speed of cell regeneration. If he somehow has his limbs severed, he easily reattach the limb with little effort.
- Political Sciences: He seems to be a master politician, having gotten elected for the next presidency.
- Hand-to-hand Combat: He has bragged about his combat skills from his navy and has vine sued brawler moves to defeat Raiden for the beginning of their battle.
- Vast Resources: He has vast resources, having been using them to fund Desperado, a private military company with cybernetically enhanced soldiers.
Trivia
- The moment Armstrong is about to absorb his nanomachines he does a Sumo pose. Steven also performs a variety of wrestling moves during his fight with Raiden.
- Armstrong's line "Nanomachines, son", has become one of the most popular internet memes in recent history, in a game full of ridiculous moments and other memes.
- Armstrong briefly yells "We're gonna make America great again!", which would later be used by Donald Trump as part of his campaign slogan in the 2016 Presidential Election.
- Armstrong had some similarities to Senator Palpatine from the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. Aside from their both being senators, both characters also manipulated both sides to ensure he was made a likely nominee for the highest power in office (President of the United States in the case of Senator Armstrong, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic in the case of Palpatine), both also were smart enough to take into account factors that may not work well into their plans and make appropriate adjustments to their plans to ensure they succeeded regardless, and both even ended up forcing a heroic character to become a villain, only to not have as much success with the main character (Armstrong with Samuel Rodrigues and Raiden, Palpatine with Anakin and Luke Skywalker). The main difference was that Palpatine primarily did his actions solely for the sake of gaining power, while in the case of Armstrong, he did it out of a genuine desire to make America great again.
- Armstrong himself also directly references Star Wars in the Metal Gear EXCELSUS boss fight, with some of his dialogue. Firstly, is his line: "Impressive, Jack. Most impressive", which references this line by Darth Vader. Second is his line: "Don't get too cocky, kid", which references one of Han Solo's lines.
- He is compared with Akainu from One Piece.
- Armstrong resembles Anthony's Dad from Ren And Stimpy.
