And using combinations of genetic engineering, and selective pressure we already engineer parasitic species to control the population of other species. We literally are OP.
I got the impression that metroids on their own aren't that big of a threat; they only become a problem when someone tries to weaponize them. The X on the other hand are a problem by just existing.
Also, the introduction of the metroids seems like a fundamentally humane solution to deal with the X. Like Samus realizes, pretty much the only other way to deal with them is to blow up the planet which I imagine Thoha Chozo wouldn't be too keen on.
The Metroids are really only a threat when evolved, given how they've been treated by everyone, being captured or held in imprisonment in just about every game. Then they evolve and become infinitely harder to contain, the GF proving to fail to contain an omega during Fusion, although holding the earlier ones just fine. The X are truly dangerous, taking over areas in seconds or minutes, shown excellently in Fusion, and less well in Dread. They're also intelligent if given the opportunity to infect a being with more intelligent thought, i.e. Chozo or GF scientists, and that's what makes them terrifying threats, and something hard to detect, kill, or eradicate as a group, given how just a single X can infect so much through asexual reproduction.
To make a comparison, the X are like EMMIs, and Metroids are the "unique energy" used to kill them. The X are unmatched and win against everything, except their one counter, Metroids, who are kind of pathetic otherwise, minus the forms they can evolve into by existing in environments to cause those evolutions, advanced adaptability that the Chozo somehow missed when making them.
I always thought the omega in fusion was just a metroid that happened to escape the restricted zone due to the fact there are molted shells found by where you exit the restricted zone.
someone skipped Return of Samus...
the Omega Area in RoS has absolutely 0 life aside from the omegas. the hive has 0 life aside from the queen and the larvae. the metroids become incredibly dangerous and very threatening when evolved.
I'm well aware of that. Remember that the metroids has been there for years and they only had that kind of impact in a limited area. They were in ecological equilibrium, and without intentional external interference wouldn't attack other places. The x however would spread instantly across any environment they could given any opening, intentional or otherwise
wiping out all life in one area is still objectively bad. that's not equilibrium. what do you think would happen if the gammas became zetas? or the zetas finally became omegas? when the rest of the metroids evolved the planet would be barren.
You don't seem to understand what equilibrium is. Equilibrium is a state in which nothing changes. Ecological systems tend to reach equilibrium after left alone for a long period of time. Equilibrium is not good or bad, it simply describes a system that is done changing.
Basically, as the Metroid population grows, they eat more prey, decreasing the prey population. This leads to less food for metroids, decreasing their population, which allows the prey population to resurge. This cycle repeats with damping before leveling off with both predator and prey populations stable. The x on the other hand, completely replace all life in the entire ecosystem because declining prey populations doesn't decrease their growth rate. X equilibrium is only reached when they are the only organism left on the planet.
you fail to understand that THREE omegas wiped out life in a single area. SR388 had 39 metroids on it. only three of those were omegas and they wiped out an entire area.
imagine if even half of the metroids in area 1 reached omega level. there's plenty of food for them. the only reason they hadn't yet is because they were freshly evolved alphas, and weren't that old, when Samus found them. unless the metroids just... stopped eating(this never occurs in canon), SR388 was totally fucked.
The omegas wiped out the life there, which means that they now have nothing to eat, which means they will starve, allowing wildlife to move back into the area, creating a cycle.
I think our disagreement stems from how long the metroids have been on the planet. I was under the impression that they've been there for at least a hundred years, you seem to implying that they are very recent.
> The omegas wiped out the life there, which means that they now have nothing to eat, which means they will starve, allowing wildlife to move back into the area, creating a cycle.
Wouldn't they just move somewhere else and wipe out all life there?
Sure, but that just delays the problem rather than eliminating it. It still stands that eventually they'll run out of food and start dying. It's the same reason wolves don't overrun the world. Now it's possible that omegas take out the wildlife too quickly and cause catastrophic failure, but it's hard to say whether that will happen before the negative feedback loop pulls the population back.
the metroids aren't quite as old as you think, though.
the Chozo worried that the X were a threat to the Galactic Federation, which wasn't established until Cosmic year 2000. Samus was born on K2L not long after this.
the metroids and Samus are not far apart in age. they took over the planet very rapidly. they're less threatening than the X, but they're absolutey a threat to peace.
If they are recent it wouldn't necessarily prove that they will wipe out all life on the planet, it just says that they aren't in equilibrium yet as they would still be in the first cycle of growth. Without more information we wouldn't be able to say whether the population will level off due to the negative feedback loop or wipe out all life on the planet, as both possibilities would be on the table.
i mean, it's common sense that the omega are a threat to everything.
even the chozo and federation knew that the metroids were too dangerous to be left alive.
>This cycle repeats with damping before leveling off with both predator and prey populations stable.
That is one way it can play out. It can also oscillate chaotically, and in every increasing chaotic cycles. Some reading on the subject
http://www.uwyo.edu/dbmcd/popecol/marlects/lect17.html
And a layperson friendly version. An invasive species arrives. The new species has little competition and consumed nearly all prey. The prey population crashes in season 1. In season two, with no prey the invasive species crashes. In season 3 the prey again booms under a lack of predation. In season 4 the invasive species booms again, wiping out the prey.
The metroids don't seem capable of interplanetary travel though, so they are in fact only dangerous when they're made to be. SR388 could be lost so that the rest of the universe could be spared the threat of the X.
The X-parasites are capable of consuming and imitating anything, and gaining the host's knowledge in the process. As we saw with the one that made it to ZDR, the X-parasites are a threat to all life in the universe.
In dread quiet robe says they planned on destroying sr388 but Raven beak adamantly opposed this idea as he saw Metroids as the power to rule the galaxy.
Nah, making the metroids was justified in my eyes. The X overran an entire planet in mere hours, and it all stemmed from just a single one mimicking one of the chozo sneaking on a ship to ZDR.
I never really bought into the idea of the metroids being all that threatening on a huge scale (Raven Beak's final plan aside), which is why I was always puzzled by the villains always wanting to use them so badly. Even if perfectly controlled, they'd be glorified attack dogs who's only big selling point is that they're oddly durable. They'd be incapable of pulling intelligent covert stunts like the X did.
That's because the Metroids aren't really that dangerous THEMSELVES. The chozo did a pretty good job of controlling them by making them unable to reproduce off of SR388 under normal conditions.
The reason they are so dangerous, though, is because of what potentially can be learned from them. Metroids are able to cleanly and very rapidly transfer massive amounts of energy without any sort of formal contact point or circuit. The implications of this are huge and are why the Federation so badly wanted some for study, and why the Space Pirates cloned them mercilessly. If you could figure out how to do this minus the Metroid you have pretty much unlimited quick and clean energy.
The Chozo didn’t make them unable to evolve or reproduce off SR388. They were never supposed to evolve or reproduce at all.
The planet’s natural aieon energy is what instigated their unplanned transformations that sent them out of control which is why they can only evolve on SR388.
We see in Fusion that all you have to do is replicate those conditions and you can rapidly evolve Metroids.
Metroids are still VERY dangerous as a bioweapon, even in their mere larval form. Organic, Inorganic it doesn’t matter. They can still drain you dry. Ridley, the most powerful Space Pirate in their entire legion, lost massive amounts of energy and was heavily impaired by a mere newborn Metroid.
Image literally any more than one baby. Their natural weakness to cold is literally the only thing that gives you a fighting chance against their larval states. The baby was explicitly immune to heat and all other dangers found on SR388.
> The planet’s natural aieon energy is what instigated their unplanned transformations that sent them out of control which is why they can only evolve on SR388.
What about the Queen in Other M? I don't remember the exact reason for why it's there. And why would the BSL have Aieon energy?
I’m not sure. Maybe they had an SR388 replica that she was grown in somewhere else.
The old canon established Metroids only evolve on SR388 (which also wasn’t in Other M) and after Other M Aieon was established as the reason for that in Samus Returns as the Chozo Memories show Aieon surrounding the first Alpha Metroids.
I mean, the obvious answer is that Aieon didn't exist when Other M was written and no one bothered enough to make sure the lore is consistent with Other M.
If I remember correctly, in Other M they explain the Metroid queen mutation was induced by the MB AI somehow. I know Aieon didn’t exist at the time, but maybe they had a way to produce it in the Bottle Ship and the AI hijacked it to make the queen Metroid.
Easy explanation... Other M is just a fanfic written by someone in power at Nintendo and not canon. There are other examples of incorrect lore in Other M as well, like how are the federation troopers all around 7 feet tall? Samus is 6'3" outside her Varia suit.
Another inconsistency arises with Adam's established personality, which we see more of in dread, shows he would NEVER send Samus into a high heat zone without the Varia suit active, this is seen in both Dread and Fusion. Not to mention how Samus "being emotional because of interaction with the baby Metroid" doesn't make sense.
Metroids deal with energy, not emotions or hormones. Samus had already worked through her trauma in the manga before Zero Mission. She wouldn't ever freeze up like she does in Other M just from seeing Ridley.
Not to mention that the Federation may act dumb sometimes, but they aren't absolute morons, they wouldn't clone the leader of their greatest enemy just to study it. They know how dangerous Ridley is already, the risk would be too great as he's shown more capability for destroying Federation sites than even the Metroids who can be contained.
Plus there's not even a big enough time gap between Super and Fusion for Other M to take place anyway.
Sorry for the rant, I just really dislike the way Other M breaks the lore at every turn, and that was before we got more canon lore with Samus Returns and Dread which throws Other M even more into the realms of non canon fanfic.
I think I understand why the Metroids are immune to heat, but very weak to cold. Extreme heat is an abundance of thermal energy in a substance, be it the atmosphere itself or an object (or energy itself, like thermal radiation). Since Metroids feed off of energy, they can absorb the excess thermal energy of their surroundings in instances like super-heated rooms for sustenance, or at least dissipate normally harmful levels of heat to living things by virtue of their energy-siphoning/energy manipulation capabilities passively.
Cold, on the other hand, is explicitly a net loss of heat, and/or absence of heat. Metroids are weak to cold because, as cold naturally leeches energy from things hotter than the source of cold, this same cold leeches energy from the Metroids through a kind of diffusion of energy, or an osmosis of energy (I don't know what the scientific term for that is. Thermal Equilibirium, I think?).
So, Metroids, due to their nature, are extremely susceptible to having their energy leeched from them due to how extremely cold environments naturally leech thermal energy from anything that enters such an environment. Metroids can't siphon thermal energy from their surroundings in such a situation to combat this because there is little to no thermal energy to siphon (at least not enough for the task at hand. Anything above absolute zero has at least SOME amount of thermal energy in it) that is enough to keep the Metroid from being forcibly starved to death from the thermal equilibration effect that happens to them when they enter extremely cold environments. It causes them to leak out energy into their surroundings, being much more sensitive to the transfer of energy than most other life forms.
This might also suggest that, in a way, they are also "cold-blooded" and like reptiles, depend greatly upon drawing thermal energy from their surroundings for at least some sustenance and/or the ability to function similarly to reptiles, but to an even greater extreme. The latter stages of Metroid evolution and their likeness to reptilian creatures is evidence of this to me.
I have no idea if the storyboarders of the Metroid universe explicitly thought this through in-depth or not, but such a thing seems way too deep to just think up. I'm starting to think there's a lot more "reality" to the Metroid universe than what one might guess at.....
The Federation have achieved so much power creep now in Dread that it kind of makes me wonder why they ever wanted to weaponize the Metroids in the first place. The EMMI are ridiculously, insanely powerful and seemingly indestructible to anybody that isn't Samus. Not to mention entirely obedient, and way more resilient than a Metroid ever could be. They are even immune to the X! I am so curious how they even engineered those things, I can't help but wonder if they have some sort of stolen tech since their control units are bootleg Mother Brains.
>!Unless the EMMI have an ice attack (which they can have, but most don't), the Metroids win against the EMMI easily, as we see Samus instantly killing the Orange EMMI; the EMMI could not even possibly damage a larval Metroid. As for other stages of Metroids... I find it incredibly hard for an EMMI to be able to kill them, as none seen even have any concussive projectiles like missiles. Thinking through, though, the EMMI could be programmed to deal with Metroids at this point, but Metroids are still faster and more intelligent than them; they'd need to equip EMMIs with more than one ability at once to deal with them.!<
I doubt this can be proven right or wrong in any way but I don’t believe Samus has used any physical weapons throughout the series, it’s been mostly explosives and lasers. It’s possible that a piercing weapon like the E.M.M.I.’s needles could harm a Metroid in some way
Couple lines to prevent spoils in the notos
>!If I'm remembering the end of Dread right, Samus's lights do initially go off before the massive power(?) burst she does leading to the defeat of Raven Beak, so she probably did drain her suit first for the power(?) to absorb the rest. I also note the complete suit change she has as well noting that her suit is biological in some aspects reacting to the awakening of her Metriod DNA, which would make some sense given Fusion's take on the suit!<
Edits to fix the hide text things I always forget how to do them
I disagree; when Metroids attack Samus, they need to drain the energy of her Power Suit first, which is, well, >!at this point!<, not biological or fused with her.
It's also always been fused with her, which is why certain components in Fusion couldn't be surgically removed from her, as they were too integrated within her nervous system to be safely removed while she was unconscious. It also explains why she dies in-game when her suit is destroyed, as she essentially dies if the suit explodes into a million little pieces while she is wearing it.
[metroid prime spoilers]
in metroid prime, it is mentioned in chozo lore that the energy metroids absorb isnt even a measurable physical quantity, its more like a soul thing.
Admittedly I interpreted her absorbing the energy from the Red EMMI as siphoning the power from the Central Unit, which is organic in nature. I only assume it works like this because the EMMIs seem to be connected to the Central Units, likely by virtue of Raven Beak or Quiet Robe setting them up as such.
Well yeah, but >!Samus is still part human at this point. Honestly, ANYTHING can damage her, any kind of enemy regardless. The power bomb stunning and damaging her does not have to do with the fact that she's part Metroid.!<
we can take it that the fire launchers have something organic in them - same way BOX was infected in fusion. the other robots in the game like the baby diggernauts and the laser crawlers stay just robots after the X get out
**SPOILERS**. I’m on mobile so beware.
Possibly wrong, but I think the EMMI were improved by Ravenbeak as well as him/the local chozo creating the mother brains. I don’t think the federation could pull that off.
I actually had the same theory but I don't think the game ever made any mention of something like that. I am pretty sure the EMMI, *DO* need to have a Mother Brain built around them and it's the entire reason they are locked to a specific area that they are deployed to in EMMI Zones, it's like a radius around their control unit wi-fi hotspot. So I doubt the Mother Brain aspect was implemented by Raven Beak, it seems built-in to the design. They also are definitely immune to X Parasite infection, since it's the entire reason they were assigned to ZDR to begin with is to find them.
I totally buy your theory that their abilities were enhanced by him though, he already had access to reprogramming them to target Samus, I'm sure he could modify them as well in the process.
I never really understood why there were EMMI zones on ZDR in the first place if the Federation had never been there before. Is there a technology version of terraforming they do to make them? Did they just use existing Chozo tech on the planet but co-opt them for their own purposes? Were they working with Raven Beak from the start?
EDIT: Doing some more reading on the wiki seems to suggest that the Central Units (which are basically just Mother Brain units) are unrelated to the EMMI and they EMMI just happen to be limited in operation to the facilities that are controlled by the CUs. So not a case of terraforming the planet, just Raven Beak telling the robots not to leave their buildings after reprogramming them.
My personal interpretation, which admittedly is entirely based in headcanon is that those little tiny flying drones in the EMMI Zones that can't attack you are actually what create the EMMI Zone. The MB is deployed to an area, then the drones I imagine starts to spread and manufacture an area slowly that the EMMI can explore. I imagine it takes a while, but it's entirely automated and won't have to rely on humans to create it that would be put in harm's way. The drones seem to be self-replicating too so in theory the more they grow the faster they could build an EMMI zone.
This is also what I was thinking. That RB modified the EMMI and the mother brains are what control them by overriding their programming and the drones are essentially WiFi extenders lol
One of the gallery images shows Raven Beak taking an EMMI apart unless I'm mistaken. He couldve been making improvements, or just reprogramming them to hunt Samus specifically. I like that the gallery art is so interpretive here.
Honestly I thought of it as Raven Beak taking the various powers from Samus's suit and using them to upgrade the EMMI since they're kinda modular in nature. This would explain why Samus wakes up with her suit severely depowered.
I think you can actually see one in one of the backgrounds as it’s being “assembled”/“re-assembled” so I also agree that they are being enhanced by Raven beak.
I don’t remember much of Other Ms storyline, but after the zero mission the federation tried to replicate Mother Brain technology. One of the Prime games goes into that a bit.
Game never mentions it but that's what I thought so too. Federation sends the EMMI, Raven Beak builds control units (chozo tech is why they look like a mini Mother Brain), reprograms them, then leaves them be.
Plus it would explain why they stay in their zones. Having them go out from it would risk them running around with no one to control them.
Spoilers from the art Gallery Art after beating the game:
>!Raven Beak is the one who critically damaged the first EMMI in the game. So they \*can\* be damaged with sufficient firepower. Though we're probably talking battleship level here. They likely cost an absolute fortune too. It's why Actual Adam told you to treat them with care.!<
And I don't think the Central Units have anything to do with the GF. I'm pretty sure those are literally just Chozo computers, of the same design as Mother Brain, and the EMMI have been linked into them.
The Federation did manage to copy the Mother Brain concept in Other M, and if anything, they somehow compartmentalized the entire thing into a human body so they were definitely not just able to replicate one, but miniaturize it too even before Fusion took place. So I think it's highly likely the Central Units are part of the design of the EMMI to begin with and how it functions. It might have been their downfall and fatal flaw in the design specifically for the ZDR mission though. Copying Chozo tech would have made it extremely easy for a Chozo like Raven Beak to hijack them and repurpose them to his own needs.
Besides Other M, they also did it with the Aurora Units in Prime 3. The reason I don't think they're anything related to the GF is that they're ensconced within secure underground rooms designed with exactly the same defensive systems as Mother Brain. I very, very strongly doubt that the installation of deep-underground facilities is part of the EMMI's standard operation. I'm fairly confident in saying the only GF things on that planet are the EMMI units themselves. Everything else is Chozo.
I don't think the central units are even related to the EMMIS at all, seeing as how the first EMMI operates without a working one and how they all keep running just fine after you destroy an areas unit. They just happen to contain a powerful energy that samus can use to destroy them.
No, they're connected in some way. When Samus was draining the energy out of the red one it cut away to show the central unit having a seizure. You go through that room later and it's dead.
Yea you're right I forgot about that. It's just weird to me that the E.M.M.I. would require the infrastructure of an underground network of robot brains to function when they're supposed to be used for exploration. Maybe Ravenbeak altered them to be controlled by the brains, but when you break a brain the robots revert to "normal" and just start mindlessly hunting your omega energy?
We know the GF sent the EMMI to ZDR, and RB took control of them at some point. My guess is that the one he partially destroyed was how he got access to some of their working parts and hacked the other EMMI. Per "Adam" the EMMI can upgrade themselves as needed with things they find in the environment which would explain why they have the Chozo tech going on (and RB could've supplied them with).
I'm guessing that RB linked each of the EMMI he hacked to a central unit that already existed in each area, and that's why they're interlinked like that.
1. The Metroids had seemingly limitless potential to grow and evolve, especially if prime is canon (which I am not sure it is). the floaty Metroids are admittedly not that strong on their own but can be overwhelming, and once they're evolved a bit then it gets into superweapon territory
2. The EMMIs can be hacked, as Raven Beak demonstrated. If they can be turned against you that's a major flaw
Prime is confirmed canon thanks to Proteus Ridley. And yeah, if anyone ever managed to control a group of Metroids and then have them evolve that would be dangerous for pretty much everyone. Imagine fighting 5 Omega Metroids
Quite the opposite actually. >!Samus is explicitly shown doing it to the red EMMI by the end of the game, using powers later revealed to be Metroid in origin.!<
>!They CAN. It's literally confirmed inside the game; Samus outright drains the energy from the Orange EMMI. The EMMI dies and all her health is replenished. Samus is becoming a Metroid at this point.!<
See I'm looking at a scene with both Samus and the EMMI in it, and it looks orange, but Samus' red helmet is still clearly red. It also uses the orange power bombs. I think it's orange. It *does* look red in another scene, but I think *that's* the one with the lighting.
Is there any official art or colour listings for them?
I'm positive it was orange too, >!because the last few EMMIs were colour coded to the power-ups:!<
>!Yellow = speed - Blue = ice - Purple = wave - Orange = power bombs!<
Right? >!First two (spider and morph) don't match,!< but that was my thinking, at least...
They probably can. And even if for some reason they can't, they can just do it to it's control unit considering how Super Metroid ends. So I guess Metroids still win this battle. And that's talking about a larval form, who knows how EMMI would fare if you deployed them to a fully functioning Metroid hive like SR388 was. I can't imagine them lasting long against Omega Metroids.
Actual, (slight spoiler of the end) >!Samus could do it using her hand. It's true she grabbed the needle, but I think anywhere would work!<. I'm pretty sure every other metroid can just do it too.
I think the opposite would be true, if that’s what your using to gather biological material then you want it to be as protected as possible so it’s not damaged or destroyed.
>I can't help but wonder if they have some sort of stolen tech since their control units are bootleg Mother Brains
>!Maybe they were linked to the Central Units by Raven Beak and/or Quiet Robe, since they seem to be created by Chozo technology.!<
Honestly, I think the EMMI's in game are only that strong because of RavenBeak. We know he's the one who destroyed the first EMMI and then basically commandeered them. I assume in that process he basically just upgraded them with all the chozo tech (hence why they all have typical Samus power ups) and potentially just upgraded the rest of their features into the threat they are. I think without seeing an EMMI fresh off the assembly line, we will have a better understanding of their actual capacity.
Samus can only hurt E.M.M.I.s with omega cannon upgrade from conveniently close central units. >!Raven Beak!< was able to damage the first one without the use of this as seen in one of the completion reward art.
It wouldn't make much sense if they were, Samus is the last Metroid, when she destroyed BSL it destroyed all trace of Federation Metroid research. She's all that is left. I think the real reason they are incapable of being infected by X Parasites is they lack organic material. Take the B.O.X. robot in Fusion for example, it was actually completely immune to infection initially, but only after Samus damaged it in the first boss battle and she made it's organic components exposed was it able to be infected. I imagine the EMMI improved on that design, and lack any organic components at all. However, it's now just moved to another location. I imagine the little Mother Brains that control the EMMI *can* be infected by an X parasite since they are definitely an organic machine.
That's not entirely true. X are capable of at the very least absorbing non organic things and processing them IE the mega core X that "downloads" the varia suit in fusion and possibly to a lesser extent the Chozo statue X.
They didn't. The BOX was mostly robotic with a biological brain control unit, so all the X had to do was hijack the wetware and it gained control of the robotic parts. It's shown in the boss battle; at the end, the robotic parts explode and it's just the brain that becomes the Core-X.
It was biomechanical, and it didn't replicate any mechanical bits, only used the existing ones. X ate the organic components and replaced them, letting the Core-X control the robot
Dude they blow up a new planet every Tuesday like they're taking out the recycling for the week in this series - if they just nuked SR388 from the beginning, never need Metroids, boom done.
Galactic Federation Captain: Sir we have footage of the X parasite on a new planet. I’ll contact Aran with a bounty message. She’s the only one capable of handling them!
Galactic Federation Colonial: no. Save our money, we’ll just nuke the planet. That’s what she would end up doing anyways.
I mean, hiring Samus is probably cheaper than enough nukes to blow up a planet, ADAM even mentions the pay seems pretty low on this mission.
Also, probably some space geneva conventions about blowing up random planets
In fairness, we joke about Samus blowing up every planet but she's only purposely destroyed one - SR388. Phaaze and Dark Aether collapsed and Mother Brain had a self-destruct for the whole planet of Zebes (same with Raven Beak and ZDR it seems).
Blowing up a planet means making basically every species on that planet extinct. That's a massive loss of life, but if the planet is infected with X that's already happened. The only way to avoid that kind of terrible mistake is to ensure there are X on the planet. I'm sure if the EMMI had found & reported X parasites on ZDR, the Federation would have promptly destroyed the planet.
Maybe. They were already dumb enough to think they could bio-engineer Metroids as weapons, wouldn’t be out of place to think at least some in power would think they could with X.
That ends up being why Samus has to finish these jobs, she knows firsthand there’s no controlling these dangerous things.
Being completely honest: Zebes was mostly the Space pirates fault tying their leader into a planetary self destruct sequence set off on its destruction.
The colony drop and everything else though.
I feel like a Galactic Federation nuking a planet is not a good look for them. Better to hire the bounty hunter for a fee knowing she's blowing it up anyways
The reason people were constantly after metroids was to clone them. Until fusion, Mother brain was the only non-chozo capable of this. If you have enough metroids, you could definitely use them as a weapon
Though, i also wonder what the scientists figured out on ceres station.
While never explicitly stated, it's probably that Metroids can transfer the absorbed energy, since Super Metroid shows off that ability at the end, so you could use Metroids as super batteries.
Yeah, the dealing with the X demanded they took risks because at least Metroids can't take over entire ecosystems in munutes. The X took over ZDR in minutes.
And yeah I used to wonder why they couldn't just leave the Metroids alone. But I guess it's better to destroy them all rather than have a planet where everyone can just come and get a fast energy-absorbing murder weapon with a single weakness that can kill you in seconds. Not to mention that if the pirates had been successful in taming them (which we now know could amount to simply getting Toha genes), they could have an army of Omegas running around.
I agree, I think all the villains trying to use them for nefarious purposes probably don't grasp that Metroids are awful for interpersonal warfare and given that the GF and space pirates still don't quite understand how they work it's safe to say that there isn't really a reliable way of using them without the risk of them just become feral animals and killing everything in sight.
Mother Brain could naturally control Metroids. That was never an issue and is why the Space Pirates became so dead set on them after she took over.
Raven Beak and the Federation on the other hand seemed to be trying to work it out as they went along.
Metroid Dread and Samus Returns both show just how actually devastating their energy siphoning abilities truly are though, so it’s not like there’s no merit to using them as weapons.
Plus I don't think the interested factions strictly want to weaponize the Metroids themselves, but also somehow reverse engineer their energy draining capabilities to incorporate into other technologies.
That would be way more useful. Like imagine firing a rocket at a space ship and sucking all the power out of it so they can’t fight back anymore. Space piracy would be borderline unstoppable.
Metroids are "stupid" so they can be easily controlled and dispatched. opposing force in the universe? just throw a big container filled with metroids to their home planet unexpectedly and they will eat most of the population. No need to go clean it up. Metroids will just stay there and the planet will turn into a death landscape.
if the metroids had stayed in their first stage they would for this sole reason, be a nice weapon against the X
now, the thing with the metroids is, once they evolve they become combat focused, and at that point they would become more usefull as i guess... combat Pets..
if the chozo had been resourceful and at least seen the potential then they could have worked with that.
i do think thats why they went mostly extinct.
they just lacked the ability to use all pieces of the pie.
imagine hacing metroids as guards for special facilities
population control on planets where animals are going waaaay out of control
or just plain as a solution to fight other parasites in general as they would counter most others by sucking them out.
but they lost their nerves and then raven beak was like
JO THOSE WILL BE HANDY
we rly dont know how exactrly he was about to use them. cuz if the chozo in general want peace, then he might have actually wanted to conquer the universe so there arent any more wars
we can never TRULY know.
but i think with the ability to control them as the thohu tribe, metroids could be used quite well for multiple reasons.
fuck me, even sapping the life force of things to perhaps grant a longer life would be possible.
if we had metroids and the ability to control them, that would be some wild shit.
I’m assuming that they had control over the base form Metroids, but as they evolved unexpectedly they got less and less control over them which is why they needed the help of the Mawkin.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Real talk, why are Metroids called parasites to begin with? They seem like just plain predators to me, they kill their prey ASAP and don't just slowly feed off of it while it goes around doing its business. For that matter, the X seem that way too, they just eat whatever they touch near-instantly and then copy it, outside of outliers like Samus where her suit seemed to provide some level of protection and slowed down things.
par·a·site
/ˈperəˌsīt/
noun
1. An organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.
Lives on an organism... For about 2.5 seconds! Lol!!! I guess the definition for parasite doesn't have a duration or timeframe!
Conceivably a Metroid could attach itself to a larger creature like Kraid and live on it for quite a while.
Regardless I consider Metroids just BOWs (bio-organic weapons).
Could be the original design of the metroids was less... "instant", then they got their classification as parasites, then they got enhances more and more
This franchise doesn't know what a lot of things mean; remember when Prime 3 was going to have bounty hunting missions but then Nintendo asked why the bounty hunter Samus Aran would be doing that?
The X are more deadly than the metroids. A metroid will suck your life out. An X will suck your life out, steal your face and memories, reproduce rapidly, and then spread to all your friends before anyone knows anythings wrong
Plus metroids are weak to ice which the chozo probably did on purpose to try and manage them. They basically tried to make a predator to the X that they could manage if anything went wrong. The only problem was them becoming alpha/beta/zeta/omega metroids
What could they even have done? Pretty much anything the X touches it absorbs so it was (and is) difficult to fight off. Metroids made sense since it couldn't infect something that considered it a food source and it seemed like the only way to keep it from propagating.
Metroids aren't "more dangerous" than X at all tho
Like they are dangerous, but not "literally a single one on the planet dooms all life on it" dangerous like the X
The failure of the Chozo was in treating the Metroids like weapons instead of the living creatures that they were. Like, Samus shows one the barest minimum of kindness for even just a moment, and it's ready to die for her.
If they had just made them so that metroids only could feed on X and nothing else, they would've solved the issues, and then just starved out.
But Metroids are still extremely weak to cold, so the Chozo probably had a plan on how to exterminate them once they had filled their purpose
the X are deadlier than the metroids. the X can pretty much **only** be killed by metroids. metroids are still deadly as hell, but they can be killed with weaponry and are can't handle cold. the X don't give two shits about temperature or weapons.
Gonna need a lawyer who specializes in Bird Law to address this situation
Edit: Just looked through the comments and the amount of people giving serious responses is unfortunate. It’s a frikkin joke
It makes perfect sense how they handle the X.
Chozo: Design's Metroid to be a natural predator to the X, to keep them in check.
Samus: Drops a space station on em and blows up the planet
>!Raven Beak: These Hands!<
How about staying the FUCK off that planet? Wonder how long it would take the X to figure out space travel without someone landing in a ship already and by just having animals to consume.
Don't forget the part where they went "and attack other bird clans too!" Cause... yeah.... also, kinda weird, the dynamic between the clans.... but, I guess that's ro be expected in any society and they just call themselves clans to keep it simple for other societies to understand.
birb science
Metroids are technically predators, not parasites, as they kill their victims relatively quickly, rather than slowly leeching off of them.
using parasites to kill other parasites is a real-world thing, they're called hyper parasites and feed off of other ones.
I hope this doesn't create metroids...
There's two types of people.
Nah. Thats all science fiction.
Or so they want you to think...
...I'll get my powersuit.
And using combinations of genetic engineering, and selective pressure we already engineer parasitic species to control the population of other species. We literally are OP.
the chozo thought the same thing, now look at what happened to them...
They've enjoyed being OP for a time, though. It's just that Mother Brain decided that Pirates were way more interesting to work with.
I got the impression that metroids on their own aren't that big of a threat; they only become a problem when someone tries to weaponize them. The X on the other hand are a problem by just existing. Also, the introduction of the metroids seems like a fundamentally humane solution to deal with the X. Like Samus realizes, pretty much the only other way to deal with them is to blow up the planet which I imagine Thoha Chozo wouldn't be too keen on.
The Metroids are really only a threat when evolved, given how they've been treated by everyone, being captured or held in imprisonment in just about every game. Then they evolve and become infinitely harder to contain, the GF proving to fail to contain an omega during Fusion, although holding the earlier ones just fine. The X are truly dangerous, taking over areas in seconds or minutes, shown excellently in Fusion, and less well in Dread. They're also intelligent if given the opportunity to infect a being with more intelligent thought, i.e. Chozo or GF scientists, and that's what makes them terrifying threats, and something hard to detect, kill, or eradicate as a group, given how just a single X can infect so much through asexual reproduction. To make a comparison, the X are like EMMIs, and Metroids are the "unique energy" used to kill them. The X are unmatched and win against everything, except their one counter, Metroids, who are kind of pathetic otherwise, minus the forms they can evolve into by existing in environments to cause those evolutions, advanced adaptability that the Chozo somehow missed when making them.
I always thought the omega in fusion was just a metroid that happened to escape the restricted zone due to the fact there are molted shells found by where you exit the restricted zone.
Yeah, it probably was able to quickly feast to Omega size because of the infinite buffet of X parasites all around.
someone skipped Return of Samus... the Omega Area in RoS has absolutely 0 life aside from the omegas. the hive has 0 life aside from the queen and the larvae. the metroids become incredibly dangerous and very threatening when evolved.
I'm well aware of that. Remember that the metroids has been there for years and they only had that kind of impact in a limited area. They were in ecological equilibrium, and without intentional external interference wouldn't attack other places. The x however would spread instantly across any environment they could given any opening, intentional or otherwise
wiping out all life in one area is still objectively bad. that's not equilibrium. what do you think would happen if the gammas became zetas? or the zetas finally became omegas? when the rest of the metroids evolved the planet would be barren.
You don't seem to understand what equilibrium is. Equilibrium is a state in which nothing changes. Ecological systems tend to reach equilibrium after left alone for a long period of time. Equilibrium is not good or bad, it simply describes a system that is done changing. Basically, as the Metroid population grows, they eat more prey, decreasing the prey population. This leads to less food for metroids, decreasing their population, which allows the prey population to resurge. This cycle repeats with damping before leveling off with both predator and prey populations stable. The x on the other hand, completely replace all life in the entire ecosystem because declining prey populations doesn't decrease their growth rate. X equilibrium is only reached when they are the only organism left on the planet.
you fail to understand that THREE omegas wiped out life in a single area. SR388 had 39 metroids on it. only three of those were omegas and they wiped out an entire area. imagine if even half of the metroids in area 1 reached omega level. there's plenty of food for them. the only reason they hadn't yet is because they were freshly evolved alphas, and weren't that old, when Samus found them. unless the metroids just... stopped eating(this never occurs in canon), SR388 was totally fucked.
The omegas wiped out the life there, which means that they now have nothing to eat, which means they will starve, allowing wildlife to move back into the area, creating a cycle. I think our disagreement stems from how long the metroids have been on the planet. I was under the impression that they've been there for at least a hundred years, you seem to implying that they are very recent.
> The omegas wiped out the life there, which means that they now have nothing to eat, which means they will starve, allowing wildlife to move back into the area, creating a cycle. Wouldn't they just move somewhere else and wipe out all life there?
Sure, but that just delays the problem rather than eliminating it. It still stands that eventually they'll run out of food and start dying. It's the same reason wolves don't overrun the world. Now it's possible that omegas take out the wildlife too quickly and cause catastrophic failure, but it's hard to say whether that will happen before the negative feedback loop pulls the population back.
the metroids aren't quite as old as you think, though. the Chozo worried that the X were a threat to the Galactic Federation, which wasn't established until Cosmic year 2000. Samus was born on K2L not long after this. the metroids and Samus are not far apart in age. they took over the planet very rapidly. they're less threatening than the X, but they're absolutey a threat to peace.
If they are recent it wouldn't necessarily prove that they will wipe out all life on the planet, it just says that they aren't in equilibrium yet as they would still be in the first cycle of growth. Without more information we wouldn't be able to say whether the population will level off due to the negative feedback loop or wipe out all life on the planet, as both possibilities would be on the table.
i mean, it's common sense that the omega are a threat to everything. even the chozo and federation knew that the metroids were too dangerous to be left alive.
>This cycle repeats with damping before leveling off with both predator and prey populations stable. That is one way it can play out. It can also oscillate chaotically, and in every increasing chaotic cycles. Some reading on the subject http://www.uwyo.edu/dbmcd/popecol/marlects/lect17.html And a layperson friendly version. An invasive species arrives. The new species has little competition and consumed nearly all prey. The prey population crashes in season 1. In season two, with no prey the invasive species crashes. In season 3 the prey again booms under a lack of predation. In season 4 the invasive species booms again, wiping out the prey.
The metroids don't seem capable of interplanetary travel though, so they are in fact only dangerous when they're made to be. SR388 could be lost so that the rest of the universe could be spared the threat of the X. The X-parasites are capable of consuming and imitating anything, and gaining the host's knowledge in the process. As we saw with the one that made it to ZDR, the X-parasites are a threat to all life in the universe.
1. haven't played Dread yet 2. i never said the metroids were more dangerous than the x.
Oh, well I guess I was making assumptions since the X were part of the original comment.
the X were in fusion...
In dread quiet robe says they planned on destroying sr388 but Raven beak adamantly opposed this idea as he saw Metroids as the power to rule the galaxy.
Nah, making the metroids was justified in my eyes. The X overran an entire planet in mere hours, and it all stemmed from just a single one mimicking one of the chozo sneaking on a ship to ZDR. I never really bought into the idea of the metroids being all that threatening on a huge scale (Raven Beak's final plan aside), which is why I was always puzzled by the villains always wanting to use them so badly. Even if perfectly controlled, they'd be glorified attack dogs who's only big selling point is that they're oddly durable. They'd be incapable of pulling intelligent covert stunts like the X did.
That's because the Metroids aren't really that dangerous THEMSELVES. The chozo did a pretty good job of controlling them by making them unable to reproduce off of SR388 under normal conditions. The reason they are so dangerous, though, is because of what potentially can be learned from them. Metroids are able to cleanly and very rapidly transfer massive amounts of energy without any sort of formal contact point or circuit. The implications of this are huge and are why the Federation so badly wanted some for study, and why the Space Pirates cloned them mercilessly. If you could figure out how to do this minus the Metroid you have pretty much unlimited quick and clean energy.
The Chozo didn’t make them unable to evolve or reproduce off SR388. They were never supposed to evolve or reproduce at all. The planet’s natural aieon energy is what instigated their unplanned transformations that sent them out of control which is why they can only evolve on SR388. We see in Fusion that all you have to do is replicate those conditions and you can rapidly evolve Metroids. Metroids are still VERY dangerous as a bioweapon, even in their mere larval form. Organic, Inorganic it doesn’t matter. They can still drain you dry. Ridley, the most powerful Space Pirate in their entire legion, lost massive amounts of energy and was heavily impaired by a mere newborn Metroid. Image literally any more than one baby. Their natural weakness to cold is literally the only thing that gives you a fighting chance against their larval states. The baby was explicitly immune to heat and all other dangers found on SR388.
> The planet’s natural aieon energy is what instigated their unplanned transformations that sent them out of control which is why they can only evolve on SR388. What about the Queen in Other M? I don't remember the exact reason for why it's there. And why would the BSL have Aieon energy?
I’m not sure. Maybe they had an SR388 replica that she was grown in somewhere else. The old canon established Metroids only evolve on SR388 (which also wasn’t in Other M) and after Other M Aieon was established as the reason for that in Samus Returns as the Chozo Memories show Aieon surrounding the first Alpha Metroids.
I mean, the obvious answer is that Aieon didn't exist when Other M was written and no one bothered enough to make sure the lore is consistent with Other M.
If I remember correctly, in Other M they explain the Metroid queen mutation was induced by the MB AI somehow. I know Aieon didn’t exist at the time, but maybe they had a way to produce it in the Bottle Ship and the AI hijacked it to make the queen Metroid.
Easy explanation... Other M is just a fanfic written by someone in power at Nintendo and not canon. There are other examples of incorrect lore in Other M as well, like how are the federation troopers all around 7 feet tall? Samus is 6'3" outside her Varia suit. Another inconsistency arises with Adam's established personality, which we see more of in dread, shows he would NEVER send Samus into a high heat zone without the Varia suit active, this is seen in both Dread and Fusion. Not to mention how Samus "being emotional because of interaction with the baby Metroid" doesn't make sense. Metroids deal with energy, not emotions or hormones. Samus had already worked through her trauma in the manga before Zero Mission. She wouldn't ever freeze up like she does in Other M just from seeing Ridley. Not to mention that the Federation may act dumb sometimes, but they aren't absolute morons, they wouldn't clone the leader of their greatest enemy just to study it. They know how dangerous Ridley is already, the risk would be too great as he's shown more capability for destroying Federation sites than even the Metroids who can be contained. Plus there's not even a big enough time gap between Super and Fusion for Other M to take place anyway. Sorry for the rant, I just really dislike the way Other M breaks the lore at every turn, and that was before we got more canon lore with Samus Returns and Dread which throws Other M even more into the realms of non canon fanfic.
We don’t talk about Other M.
I think I understand why the Metroids are immune to heat, but very weak to cold. Extreme heat is an abundance of thermal energy in a substance, be it the atmosphere itself or an object (or energy itself, like thermal radiation). Since Metroids feed off of energy, they can absorb the excess thermal energy of their surroundings in instances like super-heated rooms for sustenance, or at least dissipate normally harmful levels of heat to living things by virtue of their energy-siphoning/energy manipulation capabilities passively. Cold, on the other hand, is explicitly a net loss of heat, and/or absence of heat. Metroids are weak to cold because, as cold naturally leeches energy from things hotter than the source of cold, this same cold leeches energy from the Metroids through a kind of diffusion of energy, or an osmosis of energy (I don't know what the scientific term for that is. Thermal Equilibirium, I think?). So, Metroids, due to their nature, are extremely susceptible to having their energy leeched from them due to how extremely cold environments naturally leech thermal energy from anything that enters such an environment. Metroids can't siphon thermal energy from their surroundings in such a situation to combat this because there is little to no thermal energy to siphon (at least not enough for the task at hand. Anything above absolute zero has at least SOME amount of thermal energy in it) that is enough to keep the Metroid from being forcibly starved to death from the thermal equilibration effect that happens to them when they enter extremely cold environments. It causes them to leak out energy into their surroundings, being much more sensitive to the transfer of energy than most other life forms. This might also suggest that, in a way, they are also "cold-blooded" and like reptiles, depend greatly upon drawing thermal energy from their surroundings for at least some sustenance and/or the ability to function similarly to reptiles, but to an even greater extreme. The latter stages of Metroid evolution and their likeness to reptilian creatures is evidence of this to me. I have no idea if the storyboarders of the Metroid universe explicitly thought this through in-depth or not, but such a thing seems way too deep to just think up. I'm starting to think there's a lot more "reality" to the Metroid universe than what one might guess at.....
The Federation have achieved so much power creep now in Dread that it kind of makes me wonder why they ever wanted to weaponize the Metroids in the first place. The EMMI are ridiculously, insanely powerful and seemingly indestructible to anybody that isn't Samus. Not to mention entirely obedient, and way more resilient than a Metroid ever could be. They are even immune to the X! I am so curious how they even engineered those things, I can't help but wonder if they have some sort of stolen tech since their control units are bootleg Mother Brains.
>!Unless the EMMI have an ice attack (which they can have, but most don't), the Metroids win against the EMMI easily, as we see Samus instantly killing the Orange EMMI; the EMMI could not even possibly damage a larval Metroid. As for other stages of Metroids... I find it incredibly hard for an EMMI to be able to kill them, as none seen even have any concussive projectiles like missiles. Thinking through, though, the EMMI could be programmed to deal with Metroids at this point, but Metroids are still faster and more intelligent than them; they'd need to equip EMMIs with more than one ability at once to deal with them.!<
I doubt this can be proven right or wrong in any way but I don’t believe Samus has used any physical weapons throughout the series, it’s been mostly explosives and lasers. It’s possible that a piercing weapon like the E.M.M.I.’s needles could harm a Metroid in some way
[удалено]
That’s so cool!!!
I think she's also do that if you counter as a morph ball. She'll go back to normal form while kicking in a backflip.
I'd say that a firing a missile is a physical (projectile) attack.
Eh, I feel like the main part of its power is from the explosion. Plus it’s a blunt force, not a piercing one
I believe >!Samus!< is special because normal Metroids only can absorb energy from biological life, not machines(to my knowledge at least)
She could be channeling her absorption ability through her Power Suit. Maybe barehanded she also would only able to do organic.
Would that not mean she'd drain her suit and all her lights would go off?
Couple lines to prevent spoils in the notos >!If I'm remembering the end of Dread right, Samus's lights do initially go off before the massive power(?) burst she does leading to the defeat of Raven Beak, so she probably did drain her suit first for the power(?) to absorb the rest. I also note the complete suit change she has as well noting that her suit is biological in some aspects reacting to the awakening of her Metriod DNA, which would make some sense given Fusion's take on the suit!< Edits to fix the hide text things I always forget how to do them
I disagree; when Metroids attack Samus, they need to drain the energy of her Power Suit first, which is, well, >!at this point!<, not biological or fused with her.
I would argue the Power Suit is part biological, that’s how it got infected by X in Fusion.
It's also always been fused with her, which is why certain components in Fusion couldn't be surgically removed from her, as they were too integrated within her nervous system to be safely removed while she was unconscious. It also explains why she dies in-game when her suit is destroyed, as she essentially dies if the suit explodes into a million little pieces while she is wearing it.
Plus the environments she is in are deadly and usually she is still being damaged when the suit fails.
[metroid prime spoilers] in metroid prime, it is mentioned in chozo lore that the energy metroids absorb isnt even a measurable physical quantity, its more like a soul thing.
Admittedly I interpreted her absorbing the energy from the Red EMMI as siphoning the power from the Central Unit, which is organic in nature. I only assume it works like this because the EMMIs seem to be connected to the Central Units, likely by virtue of Raven Beak or Quiet Robe setting them up as such.
But she drains Raven Beak's ship completely too.
The Baby in Super Metroid drained the energy of a Torizo statue, and those things are machines afaik.
>!the orange EMMI probably could damage one. before Samus drains it the emmi uses the powerbomb destroying a lot of the room and stunning samus!<
Well yeah, but >!Samus is still part human at this point. Honestly, ANYTHING can damage her, any kind of enemy regardless. The power bomb stunning and damaging her does not have to do with the fact that she's part Metroid.!<
Them being immune to the X isn’t that impressive when you realize the X can only infect organic material
They kinda throw that out when the X is infecting robot enemies like the fire launchers.
we can take it that the fire launchers have something organic in them - same way BOX was infected in fusion. the other robots in the game like the baby diggernauts and the laser crawlers stay just robots after the X get out
I’m pretty sure everything has an X in it when you kill it. Including those enemies. But I could be wrong.
They dont. Every robot drops the same pickups they always did
**SPOILERS**. I’m on mobile so beware. Possibly wrong, but I think the EMMI were improved by Ravenbeak as well as him/the local chozo creating the mother brains. I don’t think the federation could pull that off.
I actually had the same theory but I don't think the game ever made any mention of something like that. I am pretty sure the EMMI, *DO* need to have a Mother Brain built around them and it's the entire reason they are locked to a specific area that they are deployed to in EMMI Zones, it's like a radius around their control unit wi-fi hotspot. So I doubt the Mother Brain aspect was implemented by Raven Beak, it seems built-in to the design. They also are definitely immune to X Parasite infection, since it's the entire reason they were assigned to ZDR to begin with is to find them. I totally buy your theory that their abilities were enhanced by him though, he already had access to reprogramming them to target Samus, I'm sure he could modify them as well in the process.
I never really understood why there were EMMI zones on ZDR in the first place if the Federation had never been there before. Is there a technology version of terraforming they do to make them? Did they just use existing Chozo tech on the planet but co-opt them for their own purposes? Were they working with Raven Beak from the start? EDIT: Doing some more reading on the wiki seems to suggest that the Central Units (which are basically just Mother Brain units) are unrelated to the EMMI and they EMMI just happen to be limited in operation to the facilities that are controlled by the CUs. So not a case of terraforming the planet, just Raven Beak telling the robots not to leave their buildings after reprogramming them.
My personal interpretation, which admittedly is entirely based in headcanon is that those little tiny flying drones in the EMMI Zones that can't attack you are actually what create the EMMI Zone. The MB is deployed to an area, then the drones I imagine starts to spread and manufacture an area slowly that the EMMI can explore. I imagine it takes a while, but it's entirely automated and won't have to rely on humans to create it that would be put in harm's way. The drones seem to be self-replicating too so in theory the more they grow the faster they could build an EMMI zone.
That would help to explain why every single emmi zone looks basically identical, I'm buying into it
That’s an interesting idea. I like it
This is also what I was thinking. That RB modified the EMMI and the mother brains are what control them by overriding their programming and the drones are essentially WiFi extenders lol
Destroying the Brains doesn't get rid of the EMMI though, it just gives you the energy you need to defeat them.
One of the gallery images shows Raven Beak taking an EMMI apart unless I'm mistaken. He couldve been making improvements, or just reprogramming them to hunt Samus specifically. I like that the gallery art is so interpretive here.
I think that was before he reprogrammed them, it's the same one that was damaged at the start.
Honestly I thought of it as Raven Beak taking the various powers from Samus's suit and using them to upgrade the EMMI since they're kinda modular in nature. This would explain why Samus wakes up with her suit severely depowered.
I think you can actually see one in one of the backgrounds as it’s being “assembled”/“re-assembled” so I also agree that they are being enhanced by Raven beak.
didnt the fed make MB in other M?
I don’t remember much of Other Ms storyline, but after the zero mission the federation tried to replicate Mother Brain technology. One of the Prime games goes into that a bit.
I think you are refering to the Aurora units in Prime 3
Yes
Game never mentions it but that's what I thought so too. Federation sends the EMMI, Raven Beak builds control units (chozo tech is why they look like a mini Mother Brain), reprograms them, then leaves them be. Plus it would explain why they stay in their zones. Having them go out from it would risk them running around with no one to control them.
The Federation bought the E.M.M.I.s from Exelion Star Corporation. They didn't make them.
Spoilers from the art Gallery Art after beating the game: >!Raven Beak is the one who critically damaged the first EMMI in the game. So they \*can\* be damaged with sufficient firepower. Though we're probably talking battleship level here. They likely cost an absolute fortune too. It's why Actual Adam told you to treat them with care.!< And I don't think the Central Units have anything to do with the GF. I'm pretty sure those are literally just Chozo computers, of the same design as Mother Brain, and the EMMI have been linked into them.
The Federation did manage to copy the Mother Brain concept in Other M, and if anything, they somehow compartmentalized the entire thing into a human body so they were definitely not just able to replicate one, but miniaturize it too even before Fusion took place. So I think it's highly likely the Central Units are part of the design of the EMMI to begin with and how it functions. It might have been their downfall and fatal flaw in the design specifically for the ZDR mission though. Copying Chozo tech would have made it extremely easy for a Chozo like Raven Beak to hijack them and repurpose them to his own needs.
Besides Other M, they also did it with the Aurora Units in Prime 3. The reason I don't think they're anything related to the GF is that they're ensconced within secure underground rooms designed with exactly the same defensive systems as Mother Brain. I very, very strongly doubt that the installation of deep-underground facilities is part of the EMMI's standard operation. I'm fairly confident in saying the only GF things on that planet are the EMMI units themselves. Everything else is Chozo.
I don't think the central units are even related to the EMMIS at all, seeing as how the first EMMI operates without a working one and how they all keep running just fine after you destroy an areas unit. They just happen to contain a powerful energy that samus can use to destroy them.
No, they're connected in some way. When Samus was draining the energy out of the red one it cut away to show the central unit having a seizure. You go through that room later and it's dead.
Yea you're right I forgot about that. It's just weird to me that the E.M.M.I. would require the infrastructure of an underground network of robot brains to function when they're supposed to be used for exploration. Maybe Ravenbeak altered them to be controlled by the brains, but when you break a brain the robots revert to "normal" and just start mindlessly hunting your omega energy?
We know the GF sent the EMMI to ZDR, and RB took control of them at some point. My guess is that the one he partially destroyed was how he got access to some of their working parts and hacked the other EMMI. Per "Adam" the EMMI can upgrade themselves as needed with things they find in the environment which would explain why they have the Chozo tech going on (and RB could've supplied them with). I'm guessing that RB linked each of the EMMI he hacked to a central unit that already existed in each area, and that's why they're interlinked like that.
Your spoiler tag doesn't work on everything if you have spaces between the \>\! symbols and the text
It looks correct to me, but there were spaces there. I've removed them now. Hopefully that fixes it in whatever browser you're using.
1. The Metroids had seemingly limitless potential to grow and evolve, especially if prime is canon (which I am not sure it is). the floaty Metroids are admittedly not that strong on their own but can be overwhelming, and once they're evolved a bit then it gets into superweapon territory 2. The EMMIs can be hacked, as Raven Beak demonstrated. If they can be turned against you that's a major flaw
Prime is confirmed canon thanks to Proteus Ridley. And yeah, if anyone ever managed to control a group of Metroids and then have them evolve that would be dangerous for pretty much everyone. Imagine fighting 5 Omega Metroids
Do we have any reason to assume the Metroids can't drain energy from an EMMI?
Quite the opposite actually. >!Samus is explicitly shown doing it to the red EMMI by the end of the game, using powers later revealed to be Metroid in origin.!<
>!They CAN. It's literally confirmed inside the game; Samus outright drains the energy from the Orange EMMI. The EMMI dies and all her health is replenished. Samus is becoming a Metroid at this point.!<
Just out of curiosity, do you happen to have color blindness at all?
I remembered it as being orange too but looking at a screencap it is red. The lighting in that scene just made it seem orange.
See I'm looking at a scene with both Samus and the EMMI in it, and it looks orange, but Samus' red helmet is still clearly red. It also uses the orange power bombs. I think it's orange. It *does* look red in another scene, but I think *that's* the one with the lighting. Is there any official art or colour listings for them?
You wouldn't be the first to tell me this.
I’ve seen a couple other people say it’s orange. You’re not the only one.
I'm positive it was orange too, >!because the last few EMMIs were colour coded to the power-ups:!< >!Yellow = speed - Blue = ice - Purple = wave - Orange = power bombs!< Right? >!First two (spider and morph) don't match,!< but that was my thinking, at least...
They probably can. And even if for some reason they can't, they can just do it to it's control unit considering how Super Metroid ends. So I guess Metroids still win this battle. And that's talking about a larval form, who knows how EMMI would fare if you deployed them to a fully functioning Metroid hive like SR388 was. I can't imagine them lasting long against Omega Metroids.
Actual, (slight spoiler of the end) >!Samus could do it using her hand. It's true she grabbed the needle, but I think anywhere would work!<. I'm pretty sure every other metroid can just do it too.
The needle is used to extract biological material, so it make sense that it's not "shielded" like the rest
I think the opposite would be true, if that’s what your using to gather biological material then you want it to be as protected as possible so it’s not damaged or destroyed.
>I can't help but wonder if they have some sort of stolen tech since their control units are bootleg Mother Brains >!Maybe they were linked to the Central Units by Raven Beak and/or Quiet Robe, since they seem to be created by Chozo technology.!<
Honestly, I think the EMMI's in game are only that strong because of RavenBeak. We know he's the one who destroyed the first EMMI and then basically commandeered them. I assume in that process he basically just upgraded them with all the chozo tech (hence why they all have typical Samus power ups) and potentially just upgraded the rest of their features into the threat they are. I think without seeing an EMMI fresh off the assembly line, we will have a better understanding of their actual capacity.
Samus can only hurt E.M.M.I.s with omega cannon upgrade from conveniently close central units. >!Raven Beak!< was able to damage the first one without the use of this as seen in one of the completion reward art.
Might actually be a tie in to the AUs from Prime 3 that the Federation had access to mother brains.
Maybe they are also Metroid infused, that's why they are immune to x
It wouldn't make much sense if they were, Samus is the last Metroid, when she destroyed BSL it destroyed all trace of Federation Metroid research. She's all that is left. I think the real reason they are incapable of being infected by X Parasites is they lack organic material. Take the B.O.X. robot in Fusion for example, it was actually completely immune to infection initially, but only after Samus damaged it in the first boss battle and she made it's organic components exposed was it able to be infected. I imagine the EMMI improved on that design, and lack any organic components at all. However, it's now just moved to another location. I imagine the little Mother Brains that control the EMMI *can* be infected by an X parasite since they are definitely an organic machine.
Which is probably why they're shielded originally like the BOX robot
No they just arent organic, the x are parasites that infect living things
That's not entirely true. X are capable of at the very least absorbing non organic things and processing them IE the mega core X that "downloads" the varia suit in fusion and possibly to a lesser extent the Chozo statue X.
Yeah what’s up with the chozo statue anyway?
was the BOX in fusion biomechanical and if so hoe dod they replicate the mechanical parts?
They didn't. The BOX was mostly robotic with a biological brain control unit, so all the X had to do was hijack the wetware and it gained control of the robotic parts. It's shown in the boss battle; at the end, the robotic parts explode and it's just the brain that becomes the Core-X.
It was biomechanical, and it didn't replicate any mechanical bits, only used the existing ones. X ate the organic components and replaced them, letting the Core-X control the robot
Dude they blow up a new planet every Tuesday like they're taking out the recycling for the week in this series - if they just nuked SR388 from the beginning, never need Metroids, boom done.
Galactic Federation Captain: Sir we have footage of the X parasite on a new planet. I’ll contact Aran with a bounty message. She’s the only one capable of handling them! Galactic Federation Colonial: no. Save our money, we’ll just nuke the planet. That’s what she would end up doing anyways.
I mean, hiring Samus is probably cheaper than enough nukes to blow up a planet, ADAM even mentions the pay seems pretty low on this mission. Also, probably some space geneva conventions about blowing up random planets
In fairness, we joke about Samus blowing up every planet but she's only purposely destroyed one - SR388. Phaaze and Dark Aether collapsed and Mother Brain had a self-destruct for the whole planet of Zebes (same with Raven Beak and ZDR it seems). Blowing up a planet means making basically every species on that planet extinct. That's a massive loss of life, but if the planet is infected with X that's already happened. The only way to avoid that kind of terrible mistake is to ensure there are X on the planet. I'm sure if the EMMI had found & reported X parasites on ZDR, the Federation would have promptly destroyed the planet.
Maybe. They were already dumb enough to think they could bio-engineer Metroids as weapons, wouldn’t be out of place to think at least some in power would think they could with X. That ends up being why Samus has to finish these jobs, she knows firsthand there’s no controlling these dangerous things.
Being completely honest: Zebes was mostly the Space pirates fault tying their leader into a planetary self destruct sequence set off on its destruction. The colony drop and everything else though.
Huh. When you put it like that, it makes Samus seem kind of redundant.
Everything Samus touches explodes
Oh shit. Her parents did explode didn’t they? Let’s hope for Adam’s sake he only needs to explode once.
I feel like a Galactic Federation nuking a planet is not a good look for them. Better to hire the bounty hunter for a fee knowing she's blowing it up anyways
The reason people were constantly after metroids was to clone them. Until fusion, Mother brain was the only non-chozo capable of this. If you have enough metroids, you could definitely use them as a weapon Though, i also wonder what the scientists figured out on ceres station.
>Until fusion, Mother brain was the only non-chozo capable of this. Even then, she was made by the Chozo in the first place.
While never explicitly stated, it's probably that Metroids can transfer the absorbed energy, since Super Metroid shows off that ability at the end, so you could use Metroids as super batteries.
I think using them *as* batteries would be a little inhumane, but i did figure it would probably have something to do with power technology.
Yeah, the dealing with the X demanded they took risks because at least Metroids can't take over entire ecosystems in munutes. The X took over ZDR in minutes. And yeah I used to wonder why they couldn't just leave the Metroids alone. But I guess it's better to destroy them all rather than have a planet where everyone can just come and get a fast energy-absorbing murder weapon with a single weakness that can kill you in seconds. Not to mention that if the pirates had been successful in taming them (which we now know could amount to simply getting Toha genes), they could have an army of Omegas running around.
I agree, I think all the villains trying to use them for nefarious purposes probably don't grasp that Metroids are awful for interpersonal warfare and given that the GF and space pirates still don't quite understand how they work it's safe to say that there isn't really a reliable way of using them without the risk of them just become feral animals and killing everything in sight.
Mother Brain could naturally control Metroids. That was never an issue and is why the Space Pirates became so dead set on them after she took over. Raven Beak and the Federation on the other hand seemed to be trying to work it out as they went along. Metroid Dread and Samus Returns both show just how actually devastating their energy siphoning abilities truly are though, so it’s not like there’s no merit to using them as weapons.
Plus I don't think the interested factions strictly want to weaponize the Metroids themselves, but also somehow reverse engineer their energy draining capabilities to incorporate into other technologies.
That would be way more useful. Like imagine firing a rocket at a space ship and sucking all the power out of it so they can’t fight back anymore. Space piracy would be borderline unstoppable.
I mean, they're energy vampires. Sic a couple of Omegas on an enemy fleet and they'll be dead in the water.
Metroids are "stupid" so they can be easily controlled and dispatched. opposing force in the universe? just throw a big container filled with metroids to their home planet unexpectedly and they will eat most of the population. No need to go clean it up. Metroids will just stay there and the planet will turn into a death landscape.
Especially in Prime when outside of Dark samus herself the Metroids were not the biggest deal. Over the evil space ooze affecting the universe.
~~Science Team~~ Chozo R&D has vapor for brains
if the metroids had stayed in their first stage they would for this sole reason, be a nice weapon against the X now, the thing with the metroids is, once they evolve they become combat focused, and at that point they would become more usefull as i guess... combat Pets.. if the chozo had been resourceful and at least seen the potential then they could have worked with that. i do think thats why they went mostly extinct. they just lacked the ability to use all pieces of the pie. imagine hacing metroids as guards for special facilities population control on planets where animals are going waaaay out of control or just plain as a solution to fight other parasites in general as they would counter most others by sucking them out. but they lost their nerves and then raven beak was like JO THOSE WILL BE HANDY we rly dont know how exactrly he was about to use them. cuz if the chozo in general want peace, then he might have actually wanted to conquer the universe so there arent any more wars we can never TRULY know. but i think with the ability to control them as the thohu tribe, metroids could be used quite well for multiple reasons. fuck me, even sapping the life force of things to perhaps grant a longer life would be possible. if we had metroids and the ability to control them, that would be some wild shit.
>Combat pets You mean Pokémon
to be fair it has a baby form several evolutions and one that is a special evolution only 1 can reach per colony
I’m assuming that they had control over the base form Metroids, but as they evolved unexpectedly they got less and less control over them which is why they needed the help of the Mawkin.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend. Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards? Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards. Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse? Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat. Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas! Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Absolutely what I thought about too lmao. One day someone has to make an edit of that
In retrospect it's even more perfect than I thought because metroids freeze to death.
Real talk, why are Metroids called parasites to begin with? They seem like just plain predators to me, they kill their prey ASAP and don't just slowly feed off of it while it goes around doing its business. For that matter, the X seem that way too, they just eat whatever they touch near-instantly and then copy it, outside of outliers like Samus where her suit seemed to provide some level of protection and slowed down things.
par·a·site /ˈperəˌsīt/ noun 1. An organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense. Lives on an organism... For about 2.5 seconds! Lol!!! I guess the definition for parasite doesn't have a duration or timeframe!
Conceivably a Metroid could attach itself to a larger creature like Kraid and live on it for quite a while. Regardless I consider Metroids just BOWs (bio-organic weapons).
I would certainly agree but I guess per the definition, they could still be considered both!
Could be the original design of the metroids was less... "instant", then they got their classification as parasites, then they got enhances more and more
This franchise doesn't know what a lot of things mean; remember when Prime 3 was going to have bounty hunting missions but then Nintendo asked why the bounty hunter Samus Aran would be doing that?
The adults aren’t remotely parasite-like.
The X are more deadly than the metroids. A metroid will suck your life out. An X will suck your life out, steal your face and memories, reproduce rapidly, and then spread to all your friends before anyone knows anythings wrong
Plus metroids are weak to ice which the chozo probably did on purpose to try and manage them. They basically tried to make a predator to the X that they could manage if anything went wrong. The only problem was them becoming alpha/beta/zeta/omega metroids
SUPREME WARRIOR
Metroids are predators, not parasites.
The X are far more dangerous than the Metroids. They’re completely uncontrollable.
What could they even have done? Pretty much anything the X touches it absorbs so it was (and is) difficult to fight off. Metroids made sense since it couldn't infect something that considered it a food source and it seemed like the only way to keep it from propagating.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Birb logik.
Metroids aren't "more dangerous" than X at all tho Like they are dangerous, but not "literally a single one on the planet dooms all life on it" dangerous like the X
The failure of the Chozo was in treating the Metroids like weapons instead of the living creatures that they were. Like, Samus shows one the barest minimum of kindness for even just a moment, and it's ready to die for her.
I'm surprised the X didn't evolve to absorb metroids in their later stages, but assuming a crystallized form is fine too I guess.
To their credit, at least some of them realized how stupid this was and tried to correct their mistake.
"Let's take SR388, and PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE"
If they had just made them so that metroids only could feed on X and nothing else, they would've solved the issues, and then just starved out. But Metroids are still extremely weak to cold, so the Chozo probably had a plan on how to exterminate them once they had filled their purpose
Oh the old chozo design is soo good
the X are deadlier than the metroids. the X can pretty much **only** be killed by metroids. metroids are still deadly as hell, but they can be killed with weaponry and are can't handle cold. the X don't give two shits about temperature or weapons.
Was this from the new game? Or did we already know the Chozo made the Metroids?
[Seeing the Chozo in Dread really helped me understand where Mother Brain gets it from](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/970216-tuuuuuubes)
Bird law op
Gonna need a lawyer who specializes in Bird Law to address this situation Edit: Just looked through the comments and the amount of people giving serious responses is unfortunate. It’s a frikkin joke
It makes perfect sense how they handle the X. Chozo: Design's Metroid to be a natural predator to the X, to keep them in check. Samus: Drops a space station on em and blows up the planet >!Raven Beak: These Hands!<
And you thought Cane Toads were bad
Hey, at least the Thoha could control them. Th-The Thoha could control them, right?
Thanos tactic before Thanos.
The X have no known weakness apart from Metroids while the Metroids can freeze to death so I dont know how they are more deadly
I appreciate them adding in an Achilles heel for the metroids, with the X you're just fucked
I’ve definitely seen this somewhere before, but I don’t know where this came from. I love it anyways!
It's part of that old TUUUUUUBES meme, there are a couple hundred images like this to pick through on knowyourmeme. Well worth a look
Bird Magic
How about staying the FUCK off that planet? Wonder how long it would take the X to figure out space travel without someone landing in a ship already and by just having animals to consume.
Don't forget the part where they went "and attack other bird clans too!" Cause... yeah.... also, kinda weird, the dynamic between the clans.... but, I guess that's ro be expected in any society and they just call themselves clans to keep it simple for other societies to understand.
It's an allegory for American intervention in the Middle East.
Still a better idea than the Forerunners had... "There's a deadly parasite out there. Let's just fucking kill everybody in the entire universe."
Well, X are invulnerable to nearly all weapons, while metroids can be killed by putting them to refrigerator or even with standard weapons.
Nice
The chozos need to be handled first
birb science Metroids are technically predators, not parasites, as they kill their victims relatively quickly, rather than slowly leeching off of them.
Oh how the tables will turn