#Metroid Other M

[domuspopuli]

Galattic Saviour

[xmrnothingx]

Melissa Bergman/MB/Mother Brain and Samus Aran from Metroid

Alternate ending to Metroid Other M where Melissa Bergman (MB) drops all pretense of appearing human to duke it out with Samus and revive the Space Pirates

[coldgoldlazarus]

Metroid fics either end early, or live long enough to become yet another Other M fixfic.

(Not a bad thing, to be clear, just an interesting trend I observed in scrolling through the Metroid tag on A03.)

(After filtering out all the bad porn and Smash crossovers first, anyway.)

[hardcoded-gaming]

Depictions of Samus Aran I love:

Hardened badass, barely needs the suit Samus

Vulnerable but unyieldingly courageous Samus

Proudly flaunting body Samus

Bikini over her armor and that's all you're getting Samus

Galactic parasite exterminator Samus

Actually kinda regretting wiping out a whole species, that was kinda fucked up, wasn't it Samus

Silly rocket heels Samus

Practical footwear Samus

Butch buff Samus

Cute l'il anime girl Samus

Any of the above, but also trans Samus (TranSamus)

Depictions of Samus Aran I don't love:

95% of Other M Samus

More depictions of Samus Aran I love:

That epilogue in Other M where she silently returns to a station overrun with deadly monsters for no other reason than reclaiming a memento of a lost friend Samus

[mhexart]

That's oomf 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[it-seemo]

Happy 30th Anniversary, Super Metroid

[beyondtoast]

I’m proud of how this is coming along

[wacka]

[dappercritter]

Metroid: Other M isn't canon

It's in-universe Galactic Federation propaganda dressed up as an award-bait "based on a True Story" movie to cover up the events of Fusion.

[figurecollection]

[voltoise]

Days 6-10 but I totally didn't forget to post them here I promise.

[domuspopuli]

I think she wore l the galactic federation power suit at the begging of her military days.

#Maytroid2024 DAY 10 ARMOR

[donphanmortadella]

Me after seeing Other M Memes:

The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. 😂😂😂😂😂

Me after 1 minute of gameplay with the lil Metroid in Samus Returns:

The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. 😍🥰🤩💞☺️

[brutish-impulse]

The development history of Other M is kinda fascinating for all the things that didn't happen. A long-time director of the series goes and makes exactly the game he wanted to make, without executive meddling, budget issues or any other major problems.

The game he wanted to make just wasn't very good.

[sablegear0]

Pondering over Other M again and I had a thought about Adam’s choice to restrict Samus’s gear. He’s likely never seen any of it in action first-hand.

If the very start of Zero Mission is an indication of what she was equipped with during her time with the Galactic Federation Police, barring any additional supplies from the GF of course, her loadout is pretty bare-bones. She may not even have had the Morph Ball during her term with the GFP. (I personally like to think she did if only for the comedy factor, but I digress.) Basic plating, no extra movement technology, no missiles, a beam weapon with infinite ammunition but severely limited range. Besides the infinite ammo and presumably more durable plating, she’s not much better off than a standard solider. Adam might be loosely familiar with what Chozo tech is capable of, given the Chozo’s involvement in founding the Federation, but he’s never seen for himself what a fully-equipped powersuit can do.

The only information he would have to go on would be mission reports and item schematics from Samus herself, and hearsay from any field troops who happen to see her in action... (More under the cut)

For the former, presumably Samus includes some mention of what she finds in mission reports, and she likely has to submit some basic empirical data about her weapon systems for, like, licensing reasons. (Eg. “This missile launcher has a maximum capacity of 255 homing micro-missiles. Each round is capable of producing a [#]-ton explosion.”) She would probably have to provide data about her weapon systems to the GF so she can actually legally carry them on Federation vessels and habitats, or to apply for exemptions to do so.

While that’s reliable, empirical data, it’s still kind of difficult to work with. How big of an explosion is that really? What would that do to an un/armoured person? To a small vehicle? To the hull of a ship? And that’s just a simple weapon system like a missile launcher. What about crazy stuff like the Wave and Plasma beams, that can pierce some solid structures or organic matter? What about high-powered movement tech like the Speed Booster? How do you even begin to quantify something like the Screw Attack?

(As an aside, it’s interesting that Adam uses the game’s item names for upgrades. This is probably a bit of a game conceit, so the Player actually knows what he’s talking about. In “reality” the Federation probably have more technical/descriptive terms for Samus’s equipment. For example, the name “Speed Booster” doesn’t actually tell us all that much about what it does. But something like “Supersonic Somatic Accelerator” is a bit more descriptive. Her upgrades are probably given technical names in official files, and the item names we as the Player know are Samus’s personal terms for them.)

For the latter, there’s no way that’s a wholly reliable source. Imagine hearing from one of the Demolition Troopers Samus has to escort during Corruption. “She fought off a dozen Pirate troopers and killed a Berserker with a single shot and dodged a train and shot down half a dozen more aerotroopers and-” As the Player we know it’s the truth, we were there doing it. But as a shrewd, experienced soldier? It sounds like a tall tale. Or worse, it sounds like par for the course, and the story probably only gets grander as it gets passed from person to person! By the time of the events of Other M, Samus is a legendary figure, and there are probably countless stories -both overblown and totally accurate- of the crazy feats she’s managed to accomplish and the insane weaponry she can bring to bear to do it.

Adam has only (rather unhelpful) empirical numbers and (equally unhelpful) urban legends to go on by the time Samus shows up on the Bottle Ship. He really has no personal measure of what her current, thoroughly upgraded equipment can do. He only has the rawest data and the most elaborate legends, and he has to make a measured, careful decision about what sort of threat she might present to what believes to be a civilian rescue mission*. Since she refused to leave when told, he was well within his rights to restrict her gear; for the safety of his squad, for the safety of any potential civilians present, and for the integrity of the unstable environment. (He was within his rights to detain her too, but that doesn’t make for an exciting video game or a very fine hello when reuniting with an old friend.)

The missile tutorial at the very beginning of the game is a perfect example of this. Normal breaching charges weren’t having any effect on a blast door that Samus casually blows open with a single missile round. She has that sort of destructive power available without even expending effort. The only sane thing to do would be to make her presence conditional on restricting her weaponry unless explicitly authorized. And this is a major failing of the translation, I acknowledge. If this point was made clear, the authorization gimmick would make much more sense to the Player, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make here.

The point I’m trying to make is from an in-world, character-driven perspective. Adam simply cannot assess the threat that Samus might pose with the information he has, so he opts to proceed with extreme caution. And this choice makes his exchange with her at the doors to Sector Zero even more poignant.

He’s been watching through Samus’s eyes for the duration of the mission. He finally has a chance to see first-hand what she can do, what her gear and her abilities can accomplish. By meting out her weapons and movement tech, Adam calibrates his understanding of her capabilities - and recognizes the severity of the situation because all these things became necessary over the course of the mission. And when he reaches the point he can’t continue, he’s seen enough to know he can safely make the choice he does. Because he has the data now, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Samus can handle this solo. All the raw numbers have context and all the absurd legends are true. And while I deeply dislike the phrasing used in the English version, calling her a “Galactic Saviour”, it is genuinely a moment where Adam acknowledges his own limits are far behind those of his old friend. He knows he is safely expendable, because he’s seen and learned everything he needed to know to make that choice. (I suspect even if he didn’t have the insurance of a digital backup, Adam would have been willing to take the same actions. His trust in Samus by that point was absolute.)

[*It wouldn’t be a blog about Adam and OM if I didn’t discuss my favourite headcanon/au, that Adam was aware of the nature of the facility and became the “Deleter” in an attempt to keep it secret. I’ve discussed this before but obviously there’s another element of caution in Adam’s decision in this context. He can’t let Samus go tearing through the Bottle Ship unrestricted if he’s here to recover its materials and/or continue to keep its true nature secret. He also can’t let her run around at full power if he’s considering the possibility of having to terminate or otherwise deal with her himself. Because she was too stubborn to leave, and too inquisitive not to learn the truth, he has to measure out what he can give her without letting her become a genuine threat to his covert mission, or himself.

Eventually, seeing the enormity of the odds against him and observing Samus’s righteous wrath and determination first-hand through her video feed, helps sway his change of heart by the end. As much as he was desperate to conceal his massive mistake, he’s confident he can trust Samus to get the job done and end the present threats on the Bottle Ship, even at the cost of his own life and reputation.]

[mhexart]

This is my fan art of the Galactic Federation soldier who gets his ass dragged across the floor at the end of Other M

This one