#Gamma Metroid

[uglynovemberrain]

I've been re-playing Samus Returns and well... Here's a Gamma Metroid I spent wayyyy too much time on.

[zovis]

[sepublic]

I like to think the Thoha Chozo had a very Jurassic Park moment when dealing with the Metroids' rebellion on SR388. Think of it this way; You need a bioweapon that can destroy the X, so you take DNA from a wide variety of other organisms on SR388, and splice them into a perfect chimera. You'll need a lot of these, so you program this creature to undergo mitosis when exposed to beta-rays for 24 hours. That way, your machines only need to create one 'Metroid' from scratch, and then it can be used to spawn the rest.

But here's the thing; After the Metroids devour the X, they start to transform and mutate. Turns out, using the DNA of other creatures has caused additional traits, originally deactivated in the creation process, to emerge thanks to the unique conditions of SR388 that nurtured and evolved the sources. This results in Metroids mutating into the Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and finally Omega stages, with their original form retroactively relabeled as larval.

This isn't hopeless though, far from it; Unlike the X, the Metroids aren't natural creatures and can't reproduce on their own. They need beta-rays, and/or the device that spawned the original Metroid. Since SR388 doesn't have any natural source of beta-rays, all you have to do is turn off the devices that emit them, and the original Metroid creator, and there! The Metroid population will always be the same.

From there you just need to destroy them one by one. You all considered the possibility of having to destroy the Metroids one day, so you programmed these otherwise invulnerable bioweapons with a weakness to a common Chozo weapon, the Ice Beam. Even more luckily, the Mawkin have showed up to help; Normally your relationship with them is suspicious to the point of programming Metroids to be hostile towards Mawkin, for fear they would exploit the 'Ultimate Warrior' as a weapon. But instead, the Mawkin seem to have some genuine heart and are helping you handle the threat, and you need all the help you can get.

You accept them and conveniently don't bring up the anti-Mawkin programming, because as far as they can tell this aggression is indistinguishable from how metamorphosis has made the Metroids hostile towards you, their creators. Progress is slow yet tangible, and you keep track of how many Metroids the Mawkin have killed, and compare that number to the Metroids you created and cloned. You reach that number, and can now rest easy.

...Then you hear a report of a Metroid attack, and something definitely isn't right. How is there another Metroid, you killed all of them, you kept track of their numbers and everything! Is there something wrong with the original tally? It's not as if the Mawkin could've been mistaken on whether they killed a Metroid or not... But just in case, you engineer devices that absorb Metroid DNA whenever they die, just to have physical evidence; Otherwise, Metroids disintegrate completely upon death, so there's no physical 'proof' to reassure yourselves with.

The Mawkin keep finding more and more Metroids and now you're baffled. You check the original Metroid creation machine and it hasn't been used since the first and only time; But you take it apart, in case... Someone's been making Metroids behind your back, somehow? But the numbers keep continuing. You take apart all your beta-ray emitters, but there are still more Metroids. Is Raven Beak creating Metroids behind your back? But why let his soldiers die to them?

You scan SR388 for any beta radiation, and then you detect a big source deep underground. You send Mawkin soldiers to investigate it, and only one makes it back alive. You thought the Omega was the final stage in the Metroid lifecycle; But somehow, another one emerged. Of the many species whose DNA was used to create the Metroids, one of them relied upon a lone queen to produce offspring. Another was capable of emitting its own beta-rays.

You know how some real-life animals, if there isn't a member of the opposite sex, will adapt by having a few transform into that sex so reproduction can occur? Something similar happened with the Metroids. Without a source of beta-rays, one of their own mutated into a Queen capable of emitting beta-rays within her own body, which she uses to produce eggs that hatch into newborn Metroids. And this Metroid Queen has been filling in the ranks that the Mawkin have attempted to deplete. And now the original number of Metroids that the Thoha cloned has been exceeded; The man made Metroids have become more like the wild animals they came from, and are as wild and uncontrollable too.

At this point, the Metroids are too numerous and powerful to defeat. But they haven't ventured to the surface of SR388, being isolated to its caverns; So you opt to seal away the Metroids by filling passageways with poisonous water. In case anyone is foolish enough to try releasing all of them at once, you program these Chozo Seal mechanisms to require a certain amount of Metroid DNA to divert the poison; This way, the Metroid population needs to be lowered to access more. And this acts as a way to gauge if those who come back to destroy the Metroids for good are competent enough to get the job done, and don't just end up releasing all of the creatures onto SR388 in their failed attempt.

That last bit is important, because you and the Mawkin plan to retreat back to ZDR, and gather more weapons, troops, and resources to return to SR388 and properly destroy the Metroids this time; Because now they know about the Queen. Theoretically, the Chozo could just destroy the planet... But they want to minimize destruction, so confronting the Metroids head-on will spare the rest of the ecosystem, as was the intention.

Alas, seeing the continued power and adaptability of the Metroids on display has intrigued Raven Beak; He finds their potential impressive, and has changed his mind. It's been deduced that the source DNA of the Metroids reacted to the environmental stimuli of SR388, the world that evolved and nurtured those organisms. But without the cradle of SR388, the source DNA will not thrive, and will not activate the other suppressed traits; Larval Metroids can't access the rest of their life cycle in any other environment.

ZDR has powerful biomechanical supercomputers called Central Units, which have telepathic abilities that enable them to control machines; Given larval Metroids were designed to respond to Chozo commands, and the use of Chozo DNA in the organic aspect of the Central Units, these AI can be used to control larval Metroids. As long as Metroids of more developed stages aren't present to rally them -the authority of Alphas and beyond will naturally override any Central Unit's- the larval forms will remain obedient.

And while the larval Metroid is just the tip of an iceberg the Thoha had never intended, what they did intend was already incredibly dangerous and powerful in and of itself, being designed to combat the deadly X and the many forms they could assimilate. So Raven Beak wouldn't need his Metroid army to metamorphose beyond their larval stage; The first form was sufficiently powerful, especially with beta-rays to clone their numbers into the thousands, far beyond the original population of SR388.

Raven Beak slaughters all but one of the Thoha, leaving you, Quiet Robe, alive. He brings you back with him and the rest of the Mawkin to ZDR, as well as the Metroid DNA samples his soldiers acquired; A return trip to SR388 is no longer necessary, and Raven Beak is fine with that planet being overrun by Metroids resistant to his control, but otherwise unable to access other worlds. But amidst the chaos, a lone X emerged from hiding while the Metroids were busy fighting the Mawkin, and infected one of the latter. This parasite stowed away, returning to ZDR with the rest of the Chozo.

And without any Metroids on ZDR, it felt safe to reveal itself in Elun and begin infecting the rest of the tribe, resulting in a years-long war and quarantine effort between the Mawkin and X. The Mawkin attempted to clone Metroids using the DNA samples they had, but the X were intelligent and could absorb their victims' memories; They predicted this move, and were able to move quickly enough to destroy all Metroid DNA on ZDR before any of their predators could be cloned. Without any methods to destroy the X short of blowing up the planet itself, all but one of the Mawkin would end up infected -karma- before Raven Beak finally isolated the parasites within Elun, somehow.

There's no DNA samples to create Metroids from, not anymore. And you can't build another Metroid from scratch, not without the DNA of the original SR388 creatures that went into it... But you can definitely build beta-ray emitters. And there are still plenty of Metroid larvae back on SR388 to clone directly, instead of the more roundabout process; So Raven Beak flies the Itorash back to SR388... And finds a bunch of rubble where the planet used to be.

Eventually he puts together that the human warrior he helped Old Bird and Gray Voice hybridize blew up the whole damn planet, finishing what her fellow Thoha started. His plans to conquer the galaxy with Metroids is screwed, they're all extinct with any DNA samples eradicated. That is, until Raven Beak finds out that his "daughter" Samus has Metroid DNA, thanks to the Galactic Federation, and the very X that spawned the Metroids' existence (and yet also delayed Raven Beak's plans by infecting his entire tribe).

And now, after all that effort in creating and then trying to destroy the Metroids, you have to bring them back using the person who helped you destroy them. Or, maybe not... Over your dead body! Which turns out to be literal when an X absorbs your corpse and then helps Samus awaken her Metroid DNA by siccing the remaining EMMIs back on her. How did you even get to this point again???

[postal-ech]

FELLAS

Holy FUCK THERE'S BEEN A NEW DISCOVERY

So get a look at this God damn mother fucking date for Prime 4

20X9

Why is that date so significant, you may be asking?

WELL YOU WONDERFUL LITTLE BASTARDS, BECAUSE THIS SHIT TAKES PLACE 2 WHOLE YEARS AFTER SUPER METROID (20X7)

THIS IS WHY YOU SEE SYLUX WITH MOCHTROIDS AND NOT REGULAR METROIDS

You can see there that these floating borbs have one fleshy core and not three. Metroid larvae ALWAYS have 3 cores, while mochtroids - especially in Super - have only one

WHICH MEANS, AND THIS IS WHERE MY AUTISTIC ASS COMES IN TO PREDICT SHIT:

>Sylux came in around 20X7 to steal a metroid, at the end of Fed Force

>He gives it to the Space Pirates, which in turn attempt to replicate it to make more

>In that time, 2 and Super have occurred, and likewise the knowledge that mochtroids can be made through the Gamma replication method is learned

>A few years later THESE MOTHER FUCKERS SHOW UP WITH SYLUX IN TOW TO BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA THE FEDS AGAIN

Now granted this may not be true, and has some inconsistencies between when the games actually take place but HOLY FUCK IF WE GET TO SEE SOME ADVANCED MOCHTROID FUCKERY

I WILL GOD DAMN DIE OF EXCITEMENT

HOLY FUCK

[coldgoldlazarus]

Fan-art idea I probably won't draw: A series of pictures of Samus across the series.

The first one of her in her Zero Mission powersuit, fighting off space pirates, labeled "Infiltrator".

The second of her Prime design, entering Phendrana and holding a hand up to the side of her visor, labeled "Researcher".

The next one is her standing before the Sky Temple gateway, one half showing her dark suit while the other half shows the light suit, labeled "Savior".

A fourth, of her in the PED Suit, gone full hypermode, an apparition of Dark Samus behind her as she's blasting more pirates into blue mist, labeled "Patient/Disease".

One of her Samus Returns design, staring into the camera with a Gamma Metroid reflected in the visor, labeled "Exterminator".

A sixth one of her in the Fusion suit, standing over the wrecked remains of Nightmare but looking worse for wear herself, labeled "Survivor".

And then a final one of her in the Dread Gravity suit, crouched low with her left hand raised above her like a claw, magenta energy swirling around it, and the label a glitchy, nearly unreadable "Hunter" partially obscuring a more solid "Metroid".

[beelzeballing]

my opinions on the metroid games' soundtracks because im soooo bored rn:

metroid: surprisingly has some fucking RIDICULOUS bangers considering its an nes game (kraid's hideout helloooo) but also has mother brain battle. which. yeah.

return of samus: i mean whats THERE is as good as ever, sr388's surface theme goes hard but. uh. i hope you like random atmospheric gameboy bloops. it works for what the game is but yeah youre not gonna be putting any of these on your spotify playlists

super: are you KIDDING me? its super metroid. obviously there is nothing but fucking bangers on that ost. super metroid has never missed in any way shape or form lol. honorable mention to, of course, brinstar depths and also my extremely beloved maridia (swampy caverns).

fusion: are you KIDDING me part 2, electric boogaloo. slightly hampered by the fact that the GBA's sound system was so fucking ass but by god did it work around that. this game's ost is so tense it can veer into horrifying. shoutout to tension before a core-x and environmental investigation for being utterly terrifying

zero mission: ok the gba sound system did not do this one any fucking favors. fusion could get away with it but zero mission... like theres definitely great tracks here but its all SO fuzzy.

prime: kenji yamamoto is the fucking BOSS good LORD this soundtrack goes hard. might be my favorite ost in the whole series. i am disgustingly biased but also like. listen to the fucking title theme and then tell me you dont get it. you cant! you literally cant! i think my fav track would have to be... uh. the staff credits. yes, really.

echoes: kenji yamamoto returned with a vengeance. i honestly dont even know what to say tbh, this is up there with prime 1 for me. chykka? the emperor ing? dark samus? hell yes.

corruption: TRIPLE WHAMMY, KENJI YAMAMOTO YOU CRAZY BASTARD!!!! i like this one the least out of the three prime games BUT i do have to shout out phaaze and phazon pool here cuz i absolutely love the phazon sound effect. and it has some VERY fusion coded tracks (positive)

hunters: were back at 'extremely low quality sound hardware', yall want anything? and its for such a good soundtrack too. it can get away from the usual "metroid sound" on some tracks but like. theres banger after banger here, surprisingly enough. sylux' theme... the menu select.... GOREA FINAL BOSS THEME??

other m: yeah.

samus returns: wow we are so fucking back!!!! banger remix after banger remix! im listening to the playlist rn tho and im kinda confused cuz i havent played this game in ages. why are there lower brinstar and crateria tracks. this is metroid 2. we arent on zebes. what the fuck. anyway catch me bumping the gamma metroid theme

dread: i hate to say this but the ost is. a little underwhelming. burenia goes hard but the rest is just... very middling. mercury steam brought the heat with dread but particularly outstanding composers they have not.

[beevean]

Here's a hot take from me: despite all the issues with the atmosphere and such introduced by the remake Metroid 2 needed the improvements to combat introduced by SR, especially in regards to the Metroid fights

I know people go on about how combat isn't the point of Metroid, but the truth is that it really was a big part of Metroid 2, and having to play a war of attrition against about 40 Metroids that only got increasingly tankier and more aggravating, was the worst part of the original game as it meant spending about half of your game time doing what amounted to a bunch of annoying chores. And no that never felt "scary" to me, it's always been annoying to me because I could practically taste the poor boss design on those Metroids

In SR Metroids are proper boss fights and pretty decent ones too (save for those few Gammas that run away), which is the one big advantage that SR has over AM2R, whose Metroid bosses are barely any better, and sometimes even worse than the original, due to Samus being very easily juggled there, and Gammas possessing the ability to randomly dodge your shots while abusing invincibility frames like assholes

And for God's sake: just because Samus does some cool flips while fighting Metroids it does not mean that the game "supports genocide" or whatever, I swear I used to see this take so often on Reddit and Youtube !

Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

Those fleeing Gamma were very stupid :P but yes, the Metroids in SR were reimagined well. I also like AM2R's approach of using the environment more, but true that in the few cases where more Metroids rush you, it's easy to get juggled (and they also have a very small hitbox that could have benefited from SR's 360° aim)

also bruh.

[danifart]

after reblogging that post where i said in the tags that im the goat at metroid: samus returns i proceeded to die 3 times to a gamma metroid. i have not killed it yet. so. safe to say im the goat

[spinningbuster98]

So!

Killing Metroids to proceed!

I used to absolutely hate this, being one of the main reasons for my dislike of this game, mainly due to hoe repetitive killing around 40 of these things is

Nowadays I....dislike it less but I'm sure not crazy about it, though that's mostly because I got used to it thanks to playing the games various times over the years

The main issue isn't so much the repetitiveness of it, it's the simple fact that....these fights suck man XD

The alphas are basic so ok whatever

The Gammas are a problem, they're basically bigger and tougher Alphas. The issue is both with their numbers and with the kinds of places you have to fight them in

None of these Metroids has much in the way of actual real attacks, rather they limit themselves to ramming into you nonstop, which is already pretty annoying, especially with Samus' clunky movement....but often the game will ask you to fight these things in very tight rooms where dodging them is pretty much impossible

Or maybe you'll have to fight them while inside of a tall vertical shaft, over tiny platforms, where you'll inevitably fall and offscreen them, forcing you to jump back up because they won't follow you, only for them to attack you from offscreen and knock you back down

Then there's the Zetas which are more obnoxious

And then finally the Omegas where, if you're not aware of their hidden weakness in their backs, you'll have to pump an absolute SHIT load of missiles just to bring one of them down, pretty much forcing you to either grind enemies for missile ammo or drag your ass all the way back to the nearest missile recharge station, assuming you even remember where it was given that, y'know, there's no map and everywhere still looks samey

None of these fights is fun.

Not a single one

They're annoying at best, aggravating at worst. And it should be noted that boss fights are usually the weakest part of most pre-Mercurysteam Metroid games (with semi exceptions such as Fusion, Prime 2 and 3), Metroid 1 itself sucked in this regard but that game only had 3 bosses, this one has over 40! And when one of the game's core gameplay elements is so unfun then that brings down the whole thing

Say what you want about Samus Returns but I will always defend how that game at least made the Metroids interesting to fight. Yeah sure a couple of Gammas run away to other rooms and that's stupid but it's still better than some of the more awkward fights in the original

This is one area where not even AM2R managed to improve, given that its idea of improving a bunch of bosses that were annoying because they only rammed into you nonstop....is to have them ram into you even MORE aggressively but with stricter hitboxes and in even more annoying circumstances (fyi: fighting Gamma Metroids in the dark is not very fun)

Related to this topic I've seen people liken Metroid II to a sort of proto-survival horror.

Y'know there's the creepy atmosphere but also the way save stations are used: you save the game in between sections of you going on Metroid hunts, having your health and resources diminished a little after each fight, thus creating tension because if you die then it's back to the last save point. The same people who have this opinion harshly criticize Samus Returns for being more generous with pickups, save stations and even having genuine checkpoints before bosses (even though by that logic AM2R should also be criticised since that game is also far more generous with pickups than the original and has save stations straight up fully recharge EVERYTHING, but y'know that's a perfect game so I can't complain I guess)

I...can see this point of view and it almost works...

But there's two issues with this

Firstly what gives classic survival horror games such as Classic Resident Evil their gameplay tension is resource management: the fact that your resources, from ammo to health items, are strictly limited, you can carry only a limited amount and what you find in the world doesn't respawn so you have to be careful

Well not only does Metroid II literally give you expansions to your health and missiles of course, but restocking is by no means hard and I'm not talking about the recharge stations: if you're ever in a pinch you can always grind enemies for health and ammo. This is a 100% viable strategy, in fact it's MORE viable than in Metroid 1 because not only are enemies here easier to kill they always drop the same kinds of pickups: specific enemies drop only small healths, others only large healths etc

Once you know this then the tension switches from "Oh god I need to be careful otherwise I'll lose tons of progress between sessions!" to "Oh god I need to be careful otherwise I'll lose tons of time grinding myself to efficiency!", which doesn't really speak of a real horror-like tension

But above all else: the source of this game's tension is not exactly good design so to speak

Because the main danger to your health, the main thing that's gonna waste your resources....are Metroid battles

And like I said: they suck

The source of this gameplay-related tension is 40 something badly designed boss fights

All the other regular enemies here are pretty weak and are mostly just nucances that are goung to slighty widdle down you're health mostly due to the screencrunch making you slam into them from off screen

And before anyone says that it's justified for this game to have unremarkable boss fights, since it's a gameboy game well....

Why make a game where you're forced to fight 40 badly designed bosses if you knew that the gameboy's limitations wouldn't allow you to make anything better?

Again: the game often plays against its own limitations rather than within them

[dmdarius]

With the lava flow changing once more, we get the chance to meet some more Metroid friends! And they're uh... much bigger and much more Missile tolerant than the Gamma and Omega Metroids. #metroidii #retro #nintendo #GBC

[cinquecolonnemagazine]

Illumination e Nintendo annunciano l'imminente uscita di un nuovo film animato basato sul mondo di Super Mario Bros.

SANTA MONICA, California e KYOTO, Giappone--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Illumination (sede centrale: Santa Monica, CA, USA; Fondatore e Ceo: Chris Meledandri) e Nintendo Co., Ltd. (sede centrale: Kyoto, Minami-ku, Giappone; Direttore rappresentativo e Presidente: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” qui di seguito) oggi hanno annunciato che è in corso la produzione di un nuovo film animato basato sul mondo di Super Mario Bros. Si prevede che il nuovo film animato basato sul mondo di Super Mario Bros. uscirà il 3 aprile 2026 negli Stati Uniti e in molti altri paesi del mondo – in determinati paesi uscirà durante il mese di aprile. Il film sarà prodotto da Chris Meledandri, Fondatore e Ceo di Illumination e da Shigeru Miyamoto, Direttore rappresentativo e Fellow di Nintendo, scritto da Matthew Fogel e diretto da Aaron Horvath e Michael Jelenic. Sarà finanziato congiuntamente da Universal Pictures e Nintendo e distribuito nei cinema di tutto il mondo da Universal Pictures. Partecipando in misura sostanziale alla produzione del film con l’obiettivo di fare sorridere tutte le persone intrattenendole, Nintendo continua a impegnarsi nella produzione di prodotti di intrattenimento unici e nel consentire a quante più persone possibili di goderne. Illumination guarda con fiducia a proseguire la sua partnership con Nintendo, offrendo al pubblico di tutto il mondo, indipendentemente dall’età, un mix di gioia e scoperta, consentendo alle persone di connettersi con amati personaggi e storie creati da uno dei franchise più popolari al mondo. Informazioni su Illumination Illumination, fondata da Chris Meledandri nel 2007, è uno dei principali produttori nel settore dell’intrattenimento di film animati, tra cui Cattivissimo me – il franchise di film di animazione comici di maggior successo nella storia del cinema – e The Super Mario Bros Movie, Lorax - Il guardiano della foresta e Il Grinch, entrambi dalle storie di Dr. Seuss, Pets - Vita da animali e Sing, tutti film che hanno superato ogni record. La biblioteca di Illumination include tre dei 10 film animati di massimo successo di tutti i tempi. Gli iconici, amati film di Illumination – caratterizzati da personaggi originali e memorabili, di grande richiamo globale e importanti riguardo all’aspetto culturale – hanno incassato oltre 9 miliardi di dollari in tutto il mondo. Illumination ha stretto con Universal Pictures una partnership esclusiva per il finanziamento e la distribuzione. Il prossimo film di Illumination è Cattivissimo me 4, che uscirà il 3 luglio 2024. Informazioni su Nintendo Nintendo Co., Ltd., con sede centrale a Kyoto, Giappone, ha creato franchise di videogiochi che sono diventati nomi familiari in tutto il mondo – Mario™, Donkey Kong™, The Legend of Zelda™, Metroid™, Pokémon™, Animal Crossing™, Pikmin™ e Splatoon™ – tramite l’integrazione di hardware e software. L'aziendan mira a offrire esperienze di intrattenimento intuitive e uniche per chiunque, producendo e commercializzando console per videogiochi come la famiglia di sistemi Nintendo Switch™, sviluppando e gestendo app per dispositivi intelligenti e collaborando con vari partner a una gamma di altre iniziative di intrattenimento come parchi giochi e contenuti visivi. Nintendo ha venduto oltre 5,6 miliardi di videogiochi e più di 800 milioni di unità hardware in tutto il mondo. Dal lancio di Nintendo Entertainment System™ avvenuto più di 30 anni fa, sino a oggi e nel futuro, la mission ininterrotta di Nintendo consiste nel creare prodotti di intrattenimento unici che permettono alle persone di divertirsi, ovunque nel mondo. Il testo originale del presente annuncio, redatto nella lingua di partenza, è la versione ufficiale che fa fede. Le traduzioni sono offerte unicamente per comodità del lettore e devono rinviare al testo in lingua originale, che è l'unico giuridicamente valido. Contacts Sarah Rothman - sarah.rothman@ledecompany.com Read the full article

[heinousactszx]

The gamma metroids do not fuck around lol

[askroahmmythril]

Do you ironically find the classic larval metroids more threatening than alpha, gamma, zeta, omega, or queen, despite the larvae being less advanced from the other stages? Considering they have the main threat of being able to latch onto you to drain energy, whereas the later stages just damage you normally.

It's a bit of a tradeoff in the sense that the drain takes awhile, whereas the evolved Metroids can hit like a truck.

[sepublic]

Again, another Metroid episode pitch; When Samus is infected by an X and is undergoing the life-saving procedure, one of the scientists has the idea to save her with the Metroid vaccine. They of course note that there may be unexpected side-effects, but at this rate, they need Samus and can't ask for her consent either way. So they go through with it, Samus' body initially rejects, but then it stabilizes as the X begin to disappear.

But with all the stuff going in on her body, and Samus' note that she was reborn after the operation? Let's do a psychological fever dream episode, where Samus reflects on her guilt in the worst ways possible.

Poetically, a big part of her dream is being a Metroid; We see 'Samus' hatch from an egg, imprint on her doting Queen mother. The Queen makes sure to feed Samus, absorbing energy from the environment before transferring it to her and other infants.

Eventually, Samus grows old enough to leave on her own. She is accompanied by an older Alpha, who helps protect and guide Samus; She feeds enough to become an Alpha herself, guiding another larva as she herself had been guided.

Samus becomes a Gamma, adjusting to the increased weight and the impact it has on her flight abilities. Then she becomes a Zeta, a bit sad to no longer fly; But the lithe speed and agility she has in this new form! Finally she reaches the Omega stage. Samus accepts a challenge from another Omega Metroid, but in the end it's clear this is not a serious fight, actually; Just play.

Samus is enjoying her life, being a wild animal without any duties or obligations, feasting on whatever life she comes across; She has no fear of starvation, and enjoys the hunt, lying in wait for a nearby prey to pass; This is Samus' enrichment. She is content knowing she is the strongest animal on this planet and cannot be hurt by anything.

And then it appears; The Hunter, a cold and quiet, unfeeling death automaton. Samus has a vicious battle with it, but is left wounded and only forces the Hunter to retreat, for now. Samus heals herself easily, but as she tries fretfully to sleep in a cave, is confronted by an apparition of... Dark Samus. Dark Samus confronts the state she is in, saying aloud the questions Samus, as a conventional Metroid, cannot say: Will she be able to kill the Hunter, or will she be killed? Maybe she wants to be killed???

Dark Samus is here, because Samus is about to become like her; A ‘Humetroid’ hybrid. Samus is facing a doppelganger, both in the dream, and later in real life; Here's the OG. Dark Samus started off as a Metroid who roamed SR388, although she was kidnapped by the Federation before she become an Alpha. Maybe Samus' dream is the life (and death) Prime would've had... Or the life (and death) the Infant would’ve had. Likewise, Prime has already haunted Samus as a ghost and voiced her fears before.

And of course, this foreshadows the SA-X. It's karma in Samus' eyes to be a Metroid slain by it. And her being an Omega alludes to an Omega Metroid being the final boss of Fusion, too! The Metroid dream ends with the Hunter attacking the Queen, only for Samus to take a blow for its mother, who avenges her; A callback to the infant’s death, because maybe it was inevitable. Likewise, the Queen Metroid slaying the Hunter could be Samus’ feelings on what should’ve happened on SR388. And an Omega Metroid proving the undoing of the Hunter, allowing someone with the Queen trait to finish it off, is also foreshadowing.

The dream also has other phases to it; Such as Samus on trial... I did have this idea for a prior 'Ridley trial' episode, where he gets captured by the Federation and is forced to go through due process. The judge is a member of his own species named Racklas, as a reference to this one obscure comic.

Samus is on trial for her genocide of the Metroids and other crimes, like the murder of Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda; The destruction of Phaaze and Zebes. The judge, if it's Racklas or someone else, pulls apart the logic behind Samus' defense, acting as Samus' own feelings on the matter. Stuff like "It was self-defense" or "It was euthanasia to keep the galaxy healthy" all that stuff. By that logic, weren’t the Space Pirates justified as performing preemptive euthanasia on humans who might grow into Federation soldiers? Other incidents that bear on Samus’ conscience are also brought up.

The courtroom becomes a dark version of itself as the jury, judge, and audience are replaced by Ing who confront Samus over the fact that she murdered them. If what Samus did was self-defense for the Luminoth, then are the Ing not justified as well, because they were also in the same position: In order for one to live, the other must die, and co-existence will lead to both dying anyway. Why did the Luminoth deserve to live more, why would Samus choose them over the Ing? Because the Ing are ‘monsters’, like the Metroids? We see a Dark Metroid to further reiterate this point.

There's a twisted scene where Ridley is fighting an armored Gray Voice... He's about to die, but then Samus comes to Ridley's defense. She's also clad in Chozo armor, but is killed by Gray Voice. Ridley, who's had the opportunity to fight back, is able to finish off Gray Voice and 'avenge' Samus.

This scene is meant to represent how Samus is starting to reevaluate her relationship with the Infant Metroid; As essentially, what if Ridley had adopted me, and I grew to love and care for him as a parent without once considering or being told what really happened, to my real family. And I even ended up giving my life to save his. It's a twisted reflection of Super Metroid's climax.

Samus had been saved by the Chozo; In this other timeline, she was saved by Space Pirates, perhaps. Given her role as the Infant, it hearkens to how the Space Pirates would've technically 'saved' the Metroids on SR388 had the Infant been left behind; While it was an armored Chozo who left only one survivor. Given how Beyond plays out, we could see a callback to Sylux having a Metroid imprint on him, after 'rescuing' it from the Federation, and a parallel to Samus' relationship with the Infant. A fully-fledged Sylux flashback might happen later in the Fusion arc, after Samus learns of the Metroid breeding program.

Eventually, the fitful and nightmarish dreams end with Samus coming to, tears in her eyes behind the visor; Surgeons trying to calm her down, alert her to the fact that she's about to be very different. Samus calms down a bit, and finally gets the chance to realize her new form, with a strange sense of awe, uncertainty; Not outright terror or panic. Just sort of wondering about this, an apathetic acceptance because she knew deep down, during the dream, what the operation had done. And whatever this is, it might be karma.

[postal-ech]

MORE METROID BULLSHIT

Alright because I've gotten hyped up on Metroid again, like the autistic fucking gremlin that I am for all things metroid related, let me tell you all about the Metroid

UNDERNEATH THIS BREAK OF COURSE!

LETS START WITH THE BASICS:

SO

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS A METROID???

In the layman's terms, for those just getting into the series either from Dread or the Prime remaster or Prime 4 being REAL: Metroids are little energy parasites that latch onto the heads of their prey to literally suck the life energy out of them in their entirety

The most important thing to understand is that they are the larval stage of their life cycle

See, when the Chozo were expanding out from their homeworlds, they discovered the vibrant, hollow planet known as SR388 - Ili Agar Nalima, in their language.

And that planet contained the most god-forsaken, horrific parasite to ever exist in the galaxy (right up there with Phazon, which we'll discuss later)

The X Parasite

See, the X have this horrifying ability to Mimic their host down to the individual strand of DNA and even their memories - like The Thing on fucking steroids. A single X Parasite could infiltrate an organized Galactic society and within weeks, let alone even days, totally convert the populace into more X Parasites.

The Chozo understandably flipped the fuck out and decided the best course of action would be to kill a nuke with another nuke

Enter: The Metroid

The Metroid's lifestyle was made to counter the X Parasite's cycle entirely - As they are utterly immune to the parasitification of their DNA, even outright consuming them entirely should the X pass through their membrane, the Metroids utterly changed the balance of SR388's ecosystem.

Now keep in mind, the Chozo DID understand the implications of an energy-sucking parasite taking over the planet, so when they were first created, they were made only with the intent to have the larvae as just their primary form

Unfortunately, however, there was something the Chozo didn't factor into their creations: their ability to adapt to their environment to an extreme degree

For some reason that's still unknown in the greater metroid canon, Metroids began to evolve, and obtained a life cycle of their own - What were once easily controllable larvae became highly aggressive alphas, betas, gammas, zetas and omegas, and eventually one Queen as well.

Now it's not really known if the Chozo created the Queen with the intent of producing larvae, or if the Chozo mass produced the larvae themselves, but whatever the case was, now they were an uncontrollable animal that had to be sealed away, deeper in the planet itself.

(Image source: warahi on DeviantArt)

The biggest thing to note is that this lifecycle gave the metroid an immunity to cold - all larval metroids have an inate weakness to colder temperatures, but metroids past that larval stage on SR388 remain immune or heavily resistant to it.

And this is where the most important thing comes to mind for the metroid.

While All Metroids have an incredible ability to adapt to ANY PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE.

This has allowed their exploitation by other parties and, by extention, the creation of other strains of metroids.

For example, the Mochtroid!

So in an earlier post I mentioned they're created through Gamma radiation!

THAT IS FUCKING INCORRECT!

It is actually through the use of Beta Radiation!

And they are considered fucking failures!

See, Mochtroids are the results of exposing the baby metroid in Super to Beta Radiation. This can also create actual copies of larval metroids too, but for some reason this had a result of producing Mochtroids too

It isn't exactly stated as to how these Mochtroids are produced, as they could very well just be a failed space pirate experiment to make metroids more akin to their SR388 variant or just attempting to make their own much like the Chozo, but either way, they're real and they're absolutely pathetic.

The biggest thing to note is their singular nuclei, and their very weak grip strength.

Now the Mochtroids we see in the Prime 4 trailer look more akin to normal metroids too, so perhaps this may be a more refined, mass produced version of a mochtroid - like a mass produced jeep, sort of reliable but not as god-tier as the God damn original.

(Car analogy, I know, but bear with me)

But another thing to keep in mind is that metroid morphology will adapt to their atmosphere, as said above, but this can also be a negative for them too

Like the Talon metroid!

See, Talon Metroids have a characteristic to them where they are FAR. FAR WEAKER compared to their Zebes and SR388 variants, but not as weak as a mochtroid

Where Metroids take a shitload of firepower to kill, and need to be frozen to kill, and Mochtroids can just be shot out of the air with a grapple beam, the Talon IV metroid is kind of like a middle ground - you can kill it with conventional arms, but freezing it and firing a missile at it just outright kills it entirely.

Now this could be because of the atmospheric exposure to phazon, but this also resulted in the Hunter Metroid! My Beloved...

And an artistic concept to boot

Hunter Metroids developed an adaptation where these mother fuckers hunt from range

No longer do they need to get up close and latch to you when they just fling a tendril at you and just murder your shit in!

They also are just as strong as a Talon IV metroid, however that shouldn't degrade their overall danger

It's very much thought that they're the next step towards the Hatcher Metroid from Prime 3 given their similar appearance, but we'll get to that later.

Eventually in the Phazon Crater, you'll even find Fission Metroids, which are immune to freezing and even split themselves in two as well! And that isn't considering the Metroid Prime, which is a very VERY heavily mutated metroid as well!

The most unique variant is the Aether Metroid imo. It's a Talon Metroid that has adapted to Aether's atmosphere and have this harsh red membrane to them. They're also have the ability to reproduce on their own!!! They have nest structures that incubate their larvae, and these larvae instantly mature through the consumption and exposure to phazon as well! There's also the Dark Metroid but that's an Ing possession we won't cover here.

Prime 3 really deep dives into a metroid life cycle fully exposed to phazon.

The Phaazetroid is a Metroid so heavily exposed to Phazon they're essentially considered a different metroid species with a completely different life cycle.

They start off as miniroids, or little baby metroids

(These are Infant Metroids from prime 2 but pretend they're miniroids)

Eventually they'll mature and evolve into Phaazetroids, which have a much more unique body shape compared to a normal metroid

They almost look like Mochtroids, don't they!?

Now eventually these things will evolve again, and we're not sure which ends up next, but eventually a Hatcher Metroid becomes reality - the only metroid in their genus capable of producing eggs

And then you have the Hopping Metroid, which looks very, oddly similar to the Metroid Prime...

(Unfortunately I ran the image limit here so imagine a funni quadraped little bastard here)

Eventually they evolve into Phazon Hoppers...and then it's implied they eventually become a Metroid Prime themselves, with enough time given to them

Overall, with Prime 4 coming out in 2025, I'd say to expect some more metroid fuckery when it comes to the Space Pirates and Sylux. What those metroids of his may be could very well be a new and refined variant of Mochtroid...or it could be another metroid strain entirely!

But GOD DAMN I can't wait!

Thanks for attending my metroid Ted talk by the way, expect more of this shit eventually.

[coldgoldlazarus]

Samus Alpha Metroid, shrunk Gamma Metroid, sideways Omega Metroid, sideways Zeta Metroid