Samus Aran [Metroid]

This week we explore the lore behind the stoic protagonist of the Metroid series, Samus Aran, to discover who she is, what drives her, and what her journey was before the events of the games. We go through the manga series, explore a few extra tidbits from another comic, and go over the events of the games in this comprehensive overview of Samus' lore.

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett, and today I wanted to take a little trip down memory lane to a series that will forever hold my heart; Metroid. While it’s one of my favourite series, and I will die on the hill that Super Metroid and Metroid Prime are near-perfect games, what brought me to writing about it in particular is that I’ve been playing through the Metroid Prime remaster for the Switch.

As I was running through the world of Tallos IV, exterminating all of the local wildlife, I realised that I didn’t know a whole lot about our protagonist, Samus Aran. All I really knew is that she was a bounty hunter, former Federation Police member, with a penchant for hunting down space pirates. I wondered if there was more to that story, and to my surprise it turned out that there’s plenty! Not as much as I think Samus deserves, but there’s a good amount of supplemental content to the games, such as a manga that I had no idea about. So after going through that, I think I have a pretty decent grasp on who our silent hero is. Let’s get into it, shall we?

I think it’s worth noting that there are several different accepted pronunciations of Samus Aran, specifically her last name, but there’s only one correct answer. In English, pronunciations vary from “ARE-run” to “uh-RAN” but in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, we got the correct pronunciation from one of the voice actors which is “Aaron”. You could say that none of this matters, and you would be right, but I spent my childhood debating things like this and I feel like getting a voiced pronunciation is the greatest form of retribution. It’s like when they said Hermione’s name on screen for the first time in Harry Potter and all of the “her-me-oh-n” people got a swift slap in the face. I’m just… really petty, okay?

Anyways; Samus Aran, as we know her in the games, is a bounty hunter. Everything that I talk about here before the events of the first Metroid is from the manga series. Characterised by her imposing stature and power suit which has a cannon on her right arm instead of a hand, she grew up on a mining colony called K-2L. K-2L was a settlement placed by the Galactic Federation to mine a rare mineral called Afloraltite which was used to fuel and power all space-faring vessels, from federation to pirate. She was born and raised there for the first 3 to 6 years of her life where her father, Rodney Aran, was in charge of the mining operation with his wife Viriginia Aran.

During this time, the colony was visited by a bird-like race called the Chozo, who were on K-2L looking to purchase some Afloraltite. Rodney Aran, in charge of the operation, was confused as to why the Chozo would come directly to the mining operation to get the mineral and refused to give any to them, stating that “[he doesn’t] understand why [they] need it so badly, and [he] must know before [he gives] it to [them]”. The Chozo he was dealing with, Gray Voice, understood the hesitation and did not press the matter. Instead, they chose to leave the colony peacefully.

Meanwhile, Samus was making friends with one of the Chozo, Old Bird, who was teaching her that befriending and understanding others can be used to solve problems. He demonstrated his philosophy by showing a young Samus how to make friends with a rabbit-squirrel-like creature which she called Pyonchi and kept with her for several years.

But without the minerals in hand, the Chozo left K-2L empty-handed. Unfortunately for the colony, there was a space pirate flagship following the Chozo led by none other than Samus’ future rival, Ridley. They were likely following in hopes of finding a source of Afloraltite, making it either dumb luck or great strategy that led them to K-2L mining operation. The space pirates landed on the colony and began a raid, killing the colonists and stealing whatever resources they could get.

It was here that Samus met Ridley for the first time. Despite being horrified by his massive, dragon-like appearance, she remembered what Old Bird had just taught her. She pushed her fear aside and attempted to befriend Ridley. In response to a child’s friendliness, and in true Ridley fashion, he attempted to kill her. Fortunately he was unsuccessful, but unfortunately for Samus it was her mother that jumped in front of the killing blow, saving Samus’ life. At the same time that was happening, Rodney Aran was devising a way to stop the pirates from getting away with any of the Afloraltite. He realised that the only way was to board the vessel where they were taking the mineral, and ignited the stash with a welding laser. The minerals went up in flames as it killed not only the pirates, but Rodney as well. Ridley was wounded, but managed to survive and escape. The lone survivor of the colony was Samus.

Soon after they left, the Chozo received a distress beacon from K-2L. Gray Voice saw that the distress call was meant for the Federation Police and deduced that it must have been the work of space pirates. Old Bird feared that his little friend was in danger, and so he ordered the ship be turned around at once and headed back for K-2L. There they discovered a lone Samus, and reasoned that the only course of action was to take her in as their adopted kin, and took her back to their home planet, Zebes.

It was there that Mother Brain, a sentient supercomputer that was the brains of the Chozo civilization and was the reason they were so advanced, deduced that since Samus was not from Zebes she should not be able to withstand the harsh environment. The only solution, if they wanted to raise her, was to integrate her human DNA with Chozo DNA. This not only allowed her to survive on Thebes but made her naturally adaptable to other planets with hostile environments as well, and also gave her some greater-than-human abilities like being able to run faster,jump higher and survive falls that would otherwise kill a normal human.

From this point on, being anywhere from 3 to 6 years old, Old Bird and Gray Voice trained her until she was 14 to 17. During this time, they trained her in the ways of the infamous power suit. Samus’ training was rigorous, and her abilities were held to the highest standard. The Chozo saw themselves as the protectors of the galaxy, seeing as their technology was leagues ahead of other races. Because of this, Gray Voice was insistent that second or third place was unacceptable, and if she were to continue her training, her aim would have to be the best of the best. She was also trained, much like Old Bird taught her briefly on K-2L, to only ever use her powers for the good of others, and never to exploit others.

One day, after a particularly difficult training session, Samus needed to be alone to calm down. She went to go watch the Iono Feria, a butterfly-like species, as they absorbed moisture and ionised it to fly. Samus sat there, fed the Iona Feria, and picked some flowers. When Gray Voice came to check on her, she showed him the flowers that she had picked and he immediately noticed that they were an extremely poisonous flower called the Badger Clover which were brought from another planet by the Iono Feria. After consulting with Mother Brain, Gray Voice decided that to protect the ecosystem they needed to burn both the flowers and the Iono Feria. Samus objected, insisting that Gray Voice’s measures were conceited and that there had to be another way.

Upon being provoked, the Iono Feria began to use weapons left by a prior space pirate raid in the area to defend themselves when Samus jumped in. Aiming only to disarm and disable the weapons, Samus was able to get the Iono Feria to stand down and Mother Brain was able to benign damage control, getting rid of just the flowers and saving their lives. Overwhelmed with emotion, Samus went to another room to cool off.

Old Bird came to her, and explained that she was ready to leave Zebes and go off on her own. He said that the Chozo were a declining species, relying too much on the word of the Mother Brain and that Samus would be better off exploring on her own instead of being hindered by their ways. Samus was surprised, and insisted that she wasn’t ready as her training had barely just begun, but Old Bird was insistent that the only thing left for her was to master the power that they gave her by training her heart, which she would have to walk new paths to find the correct one.

And so Samus left Zebes to go find her own way and live up to the Chozo’s legacy as protectors of the galaxy. There’s an indefinite amount of time between when she left and the next event, but we can assume it was pretty close together given her age. Samus joined up with the Federation Police where she was assigned several recon missions, mostly to keep tabs on space pirate activities in the area.

Samus was somewhere between 14-17 years old when she joined the Federation Police. I know that 14-17 is a pretty big age gap, but it’s the same reason that I said she was 3-6 when the K-2L raid happened. This is because there is a bit of contention surrounding when these events happened. An older source says that she was 3 years old on K-2L and 14 when she joined the federation, while the Other M concept art, a much newer source, states that she was about 4 to 6 years old during the K-2L raid which would put her at 15-17 during her time with the Federation Police. Unfortunately, what you believe really depends on whether or not you take the original source content or the newer revised content as gospel. I’m not sure that there’s one right answer, so I’m going to just give the full range and accept it for what it is, although I would be more content to accept the original source just because the information from Other M comes from concept art, which is usually just roughed in information that should be taken with a grain of salt.

Either way, being between 14 and 17 is extremely young to basically be a police officer, and this was acknowledged in the Nintendo Comics System comic “The Coming of a Hero” which refers to Samus as the youngest police officer to become a Star-Tracker. This comic also has some love interest shenanigans that point to Samus being a young adult by the time of the first Metroid game, which I think would make sense. Because there’s no defined timeline as to how long she was with the Federation Police, it would make sense that it was at least 4 or 5 years so that she had the time to get some experience and a foothold on her abilities before going off on her own. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves a little bit.

Samus had just started her work with the Federation Police. During this time she was assigned to a reconnaissance mission of the planet Jigrad. As per usual, the gig was to monitor space pirate activity with her teammates Kreatz and Mauk.This time, they had reason to believe that the space pirates had left a remnant force on the planet and were forcing the native population to build what Samus described as a “gaudy building” with seemingly no purpose other than to terrorise the natives.

Seeing nothing immediately nefarious other than mild slave labour, Kreatz suggested that they go back to headquarters to report their findings, then come back with a squadron to take the pirates out when Samus noticed that the pirates were bringing in children to do their bidding. However, the children needed to pass through a scanner that, if the sensor was not triggered, the child would be killed. Even for space pirates, killing children for no apparent reason was cruel and unusual, and so Samus went to the rescue.

Just as the pirate was about to kill a young girl, taunting her about how there wasn’t a reason for her execution aside from entertainment value, Samus swooped in and protected her from harm and attempted to put the pirates under arrest. Being one against many, the pirate commander ordered the others to fire on Samus. Samus did her best to get the civilians to safety while she continued fighting. While they were sceptical of her methods, and worried about breaking protocol by not reporting back to headquarters before starting a firefight, Kreatz and Mauk joined the fight as well.

On the cusp of winning the fight, there was one pirate left who was crawling under the scanner that they had the children go through. Samus, in an act of retribution, was intent on executing the pirate in the same way that he had executed the other children as he was begging for mercy. But after some internal debate with PTSD from her childhood, she decided to let the pirate live and put him under arrest instead, showing that she was capable of mercy and that she was better than the pirates who murdered her family.

The three made sure that the civilians were safe and headed back to headquarters where their less-than-happy chief Hardy reprimanded them for disobeying orders and protocol. And he wasn't the only one who was unhappy as her commanding officer, Adam Malkovich, referred to her as “extra baggage” that they had to deal with now that the space pirates were dealt with. There’s no more information as to why he would refer to her as baggage, but I’m assuming it’s because Samus is seemingly insolent and insubordinate, acting on her own impulses rather than following protocol. I think that in his shoes, he would rather have someone in the Federation police who would blindly follow his orders rather than making up their own mind as to what the “right” decisions are. Meanwhile, the Federation police get to profit off of Samus’ gains and declare that the space pirates were nothing to be afraid of, and that they were nothing like the monsters of bedtime stories that people saw them as. So she clearly made the right move against the space pirates, but she was still being berated for it.

After interrogating the space pirate that they had in captivity, they found out that the pirate raid on Jigrad was nothing more than a decoy to distract from a much larger raid. The raid in question was on Zebes, and that the federation army was going to be deployed to essentially torch the planet to get rid of the space pirate base that has been established there. Upon learning this, Samus immediately abandons her post and heads out to attempt to save her adopted homeworld. She has a run-in with Adam Malkovich while running to her ship, where he mocks her for abandoning everything to follow her emotions. Yet, he lets her know that she was 48 hours before the army arrives, and refused to elaborate more.

I think that Malkovich understood that Samus was a force to be reckoned with and that if there’s any hope of saving what might be left of Zebes, Samus was going to be the one to do it. So Samus headed off to Zebes with Kreatz and Mauk in tow.

Upon entering the planet’s atmosphere, they saw that the planet had been ravaged. Pillars of smoke rose from the fires of ruined buildings, and not a Chozo was to be found. They were quickly attacked by space pirate forces when Samus saw her old friend in the distance, Pyonchi, who was hopping towards a cave. They decided to follow along to escape from the space pirates and hopefully find what was left of the Chozo.

What they found was a communications facility where there was a holo projection of Old Bird, her former mentor. In this pre-recorded message, they found out that the Chozo were struck when they were most vulnerable, leaving them no choice but to surrender Zebes to the space pirates. They found out about the Metroid, which in the Chozo language meant Ultimate Warrior, which was a project by the Chozo to create a genetically modified lifeform to fight off against what they called the X-Parasite. This is what the space pirates were after. At the end of the message, Old Bird pleads that the one who finds this message somehow finds Samas Aran, for she is the only one who can inherit the Chozo’s will and save the galaxy from both the X-Parasite, Metroid, and the Space Pirates.

They also learned that there would likely be prisoners, but were urged to get away from Zebes. Kreatz suggests that they have a new mission directive– rescue the prisoners before they get off the planet. Samus agrees that she will try to find Mother Brain, the planet’s supercomputer, and get it done while Kreatz and Mauk stay with Pyonchi since she’s the one who’s familiar with the planet and her friends, while they might be useful, would just be dead weight. And so with that, she set off on her own personal mission.

However, she was too late; the building was already lousy with space pirates. Just as she was preparing to dispatch them, a familiar voice rang in the room– Gray Voice, who was urging Samus to lower her weapon and looked to be working with the space pirates. Samus started having a bit of a meltdown, not understanding why Gray Voice and Mother Brain were working with the pirates. Gray Voice ordered them to leave the room to have some time alone with Samus to explain, and much to her surprise the pirates left the room as per his command.

She learned that Gray Voice and Mother Brain were taking advantage of the space pirates’ primal need to follow a queen, much like a worker bee. They were acting as their masters as a means to an end to keep the Chozo legacy alive, explaining that while the Chozo were a great and prosperous race, their numbers had been on a notable decline for quite some time. They had a plan to unite the galaxy into one society led by Mother Brain, who was the amalgamation of the Chozo’s histories and successes. Mother Brain was essentially trying to force out the Elder Chozo, for she fulfilled their purpose and more having all of the knowledge of their race, and was working with the space pirates in an attempt to “unify” the galaxy seemingly by culling those who did not agree with the brain’s idea of unity and that Samus was created as nothing more than a bioweapon to make that happen– the perfect soldier and inheritor of the Chozo legacy.

It was then that she had her first encounter since her childhood with the one who was responsible for the death of her family, Ridley, who was working directly under Mother Brain. As you might imagine, this was a very traumatic experience for Samus. She almost immediately started having a panic attack, and Mother Brain deduced that she was exhibiting symptoms of PTSD upon seeing Ridley. And, surprisingly, Ridley recognized Samus despite not having seen her in almost two decades and blamed her for destroying his warship and troops on K-2L when, really, it was her father not her. But what does Ridley know? He’s just a giant stupid space pterodactyl.

Ridley asked Gray Voice to execute Samus as an act of good faith to the space pirates, but he refused citing that it was not the Chozo way to bring harm upon someone who couldn’t fight back. So, instead, he gave Ridley permission to start killing the other Chozo elders seeing as Mother Brain made them redundant. Unbeknownst to Samus, her friends had decided that her orders to stay put weren’t in their best interest, so they decided to skulk around in the ventilation system to see if they could help her in some way. Witnessing Ridley killing the unarmed Chozo while a panicked Samus laid on the ground, Mauk decided to even the odds by remotely disabling their ship’s standby mode, ordering it to start the engine and ready the ion cannons to cause a distraction. And distract Ridley by causing distant explosions, it did.

At this point, Kreatz and Mauk made their way down to start helping the hostages and Samus. Samus, however, had lost her mind already screaming that they should kill her before Ridley comes back to hack them to pieces and eat their corpses. With the help of Gray Voice, they were able to ease her suffering and anxiety, and she eventually came back to her usual self.

Gray voice revealed that from the start, the elders had decided that in order to save the Chozo, they needed to destroy Mother Brain. That’s why they surrendered Zebes to the space pirates because they needed to buy enough time to be able to find a way to do so.

With the federation army closing in and the space pirate mothership retreating, the trio knew that they needed to quickly get their way off the planet as well. Gray Voice donned his own power suit and set off to attack Mother Brain to put an end to things, but the party was eventually crashed by Ridley who began to fight against Gray Voice. Unfortunately, he made the necessary sacrifice in order to hold up Ridley for long enough that Samus and the crew could get away before the Federation army swooped in.

After this point, there’s a few years’ gap. During this period, we know that Samus left the Federation Police and went off on her own as a bounty hunter, but we don’t know much more past that. We can infer from the following events where she intercepts a space pirate assassination attempt that she spent this time hunting down the pirates, but that’s just speculation. Also during this period, the Metroid were able to run free and start causing havoc, creating a bit of panic amongst the higher-ups in the Federation. We also learned that Mother Brain was, in fact, still alive and well on Zebes, being protected by the harsh environment where no one could get to, and created a small fortress around herself so that she could not be harmed.

Malkovich contacted Samus, as the Federation knew that she was the only one who could stop Mother Brain, and in turn stop the Metroid and space pirates. The manga goes on past this point, but I’m pretty sure that this is where the first game takes place as well as Zero Mission, as it’s the first time that Samus returned to Zebes with the aim of killing Mother Brain.

I wonder if she ran into Ridley again before this point, because when she encountered him next on Zebes, she had no trace of PTSD but was instead rather aggressive. This is also the start of when she starts losing her suit upgrades in every single game. Every game has a different reason, and it’s mostly for the sake of being able to get upgrades so you can backtrack through prior areas in the typical Metroidvania style. I always found it hilarious that she’s this renowned bounty hunter who is basically invincible, and yet she’s always losing her power suit upgrades and is constantly scrambling to get them back. But, without that little factor we wouldn’t have the Metroidvania genre.

I think this is also a good time to talk about the power suit, speaking of the upgrades. I always thought, when I was a kid playing Super Metroid, that it was too convenient that Samus has this specific power armour and on these seemingly random planets she just happens to find compatible upgrades. And, yes, these are the things that I thought about as a kid. I was always a bit overly critical about logic in games, and it’s something that I really had to let go of to be able to enjoy some titles.

But let’s take this example from the first Metroid. Samus was given her power suit by the Chozo, and largely created by the Chozo Dryn. It came with a standard power beam, which she wields on her right arm, and an oxygen supply so that she can survive almost indefinitely in areas without oxygen to help with exploration in outer space and on planets with hostile atmospheres. 

The suit was specifically made to be modular so that Samus could customise her loadout depending on the mission. After all, you don’t want to be bringing your entire arsenal on every single mission; that sounds exhausting. The Chozo, having used power suits in a similar configuration themselves, had various upgrades littered around planets that they inhabited so that they could change up their gear on the fly, and this is what Samus is able to use to upgrade her suit in the games. This includes things like upgrades to ammunition, or energy tank upgrades to increase the amount of protection that the suit provides.

She can also turn into the morph ball at will, which I have always found fascinating. She basically curls up into a sphere that is 0.8 metres in diameter (and, no, I don’t understand how that’s physically possible) so that she can fit into small crevices or tracks specifically made for the morph ball. In this form, she can also lay bombs that can destroy enemies or environments without hurting her in the process. I think that’s pretty nifty.

Along with various mechanical elements to the suit, most of the suit’s function is actually biological in nature, which I very briefly mentioned before. The suit would respond to Samus’ movements and enhance them, making her more agile, strong, and durable than the average bounty hunter. It’s also bonded to Samus biologically, meaning that it can’t be taken off without her permission. On top of that, she is able to summon the suit at will without having to take the time to don or doff it. Typically shown in a flash of bright light, the suit can dematerialize at Samus’ command, allowing her to switch between her zero suit and power suit depending on the situation. This also means that she’s almost always prepared for a fight, assuming that the power suit isn’t malfunctioning in any way, since she can summon it at will.

Anyways, back to the events of Metroid; she worked her way through the fortress that had been erected which transformed her adopted home planet into something unrecognisable. After fighting her way through Zebes and acquiring several upgrades, she fights a version of Ridley who has been augmented with all kinds of mechanical bits, and defeats him. She proceeds to defeat Mother Brain, setting off a self-destruct sequence in her fortress, and escapes the planet.

And after this point are the entire events of the rest of the games which I’ll give a quick rundown of. I don’t want to go into a ton of detail since I don’t feel like making a 4 hour long episode, but if there’s enough interest, I’d gladly make a couple more episodes dedicated to going over the plot of the games.

After receiving a distress beacon above the planet of Tallon IV, Samus traces it back to a derelict vessel in orbit of the planet in the events of Metroid Prime. It turned out to be a space pirate frigate called Orpheon, where the space pirates were getting jiggy with various experiments on life forms using Phazon, an extremely radioactive organic substance that would either cause death or mutation. The space pirates were looking to use Phazon to mutate the lifeforms on Tallon IV to be used as bioweapons.

Samus defeated a mutated parasite queen on the frigate and triggered another self-destruct sequence, forcing her to get back to her ship as she encounters Ridley, who had been reborn after his prior defeat as Meta Ridley, who escaped the frigate and fled to the planet below. Never letting an opportunity to mess with her rival pass, Samus follows Ridley to the planet below but not before an explosion causes her to lose all of her suit upgrades once again.

As she explores the planet, she finds Chozo ruins and finds out that the Chozo civilization on Tallon IV was brought to an end because of a massive Phazon meteor impact which poisoned the waters and wreaked havoc. Eventually, Samus found herself at the impact site where she found various texts that seemingly prophesized her coming as the “Entrusted One”. After collecting some Chozo artifacts and getting her upgrades back from the Chozo ruins, she defeated Meta Ridley once again. Inside the crater she found the source of the Phazon corruption was Metroid Prime, a Phazon corrupted Metroid that she defeated before heading off planet. Before it died, it grabbed onto Samus before destabilising, and rose up after her departure as Dark Samus which was basically Metroid doing its best to copy Samus in her power suit.

After the Tallon IV incident, the Galactic Federation hired Samus to go find a warship of theirs, the G.F.S Tyr. She tracked it to the planet of Aether where her ship was damaged by magnetic storms and she was stranded on the surface of Aether while her ship repaired itself. In the meantime, Samus was able to discover that the crew of the Tyr had been killed by hordes of creatures called Splinters and that their bodies had become hosts for a parasite. She defeated the Alpha Splinter and met U-Mos, the last sentinel of Aether and the leader of Luminnoth who made their home on the planet. U-Mos pleaded that Samus helped the Luminoth stave off their enemy, the parasite that she encountered before, called the Ing, to save them.

During her mission, she encountered Dark Samus multiple times and engaged in combat with her doppelganger along with several space pirates. Eventually she made her way to the top of the Sky Temple where she killed the Emperor Ing and saved the planet. After this incident, with their warship and crew found to be lost, the Galactic Federation sent in another ship and crew to help the Luminoth rebuild after being ravaged by the Ing and space pirates, bringing us to the end of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption starts 6 months after the events of the last game. Once again hired by the Federation, Samus travels to the Federation flagship where she found out she was going to work with three other hunters named Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda. The mission was to investigate a Phazon outbreak that had spread to several of their supercomputers. The flagship, Olympus, was then raided by space pirates who gave chase to the planet below, Norion, where the hunters followed.

They find out that similarly to Tallon IV, there is a Phazon-laden meteor that is going to make an impact with Norion, which would be a massive blow to the Federation seeing as Norion was their most important military planet. So, the hunters set off to find a solution and they found that they could basically blow the meteor out of the sky with a massive energy cannon which they only needed to restore power to. They learned here that the meteors were actually sentient beings called Leviathans. On her mission, Samus is once again accosted by Meta Ridley who was again resurrected by the space pirates. For being pirates, they are either extremely skilled scientists or great necromancers because by god they know how to keep this dinosaur alive. And as you might have assumed, Samus was able to defeat Ridley again and restore power to the cannon before being confronted by Dark Samus, who single handedly knocks all four of the hunters unconscious with a Phazon blast. Samus, however, was able to stay conscious just long enough to activate the cannon and destroy the meteor.

Samus woke up about a month later to be told that the other hunters were already awake and working on producing Phazon to both protect themselves from Phazon attacks like the one on Norion, but also to enhance their own attacks. They were sent out on separate missions to other planets that had similar Leviathan impacts to dispatch any issues, but communication was lost with them shortly after their dispatch. So, it was up to Samus to investigate and find the other hunters, for better or for worse.

During the mission, Samus discovered that the other hunters had started to show signs of Phazon corruption, as they were immediately hostile on contact, and she was forced to put them down. While on the space pirate homeworld (where I guess you can’t call them space pirates because this is their homeworld… so I guess they’re just pirates here), she found out that the hunters had been completely taken over by the Phazon and were under the control of Dark Samus and were all put in charge of a force of space pirates to defend the meteor impacts rather than destroy them. So, Samus had to finish their mission for them. As she proceeds through her mission, Samus starts losing control over her own body, as it turns out that she had some natural Phazon in her blood that was slowly being corrupted. While this gave way to some sweet new powers, it was difficult for her to maintain control while she was using them.

But, after she was able to complete her mission, a unit announced the discovery of a single planet that was the source of all Phazon, aptly called Phaaze, and that Dark Samus was in control over it using an Aurora unit, a biological supercomputer similar to Mother Brain, which was stolen from the GFS Valhalla. Samus, exploring the derelict ship, found a way to travel to Phaaze through wormholes that the Leviathans created, and so she set a course for Phaaze.

On Phaaze, the Phazon had completely corrupted Samus to the point where her ship no longer recognized her biology. Thus, she had no getaway until she could find a way to get rid of the corruption. Samus was forced to embrace her Phazon corruption to survive, which made her a ticking time bomb. While in the Phaaze core, she encounters Dark Samus and they are forced to duke it out again. Dark Samus, losing the fight, took the drastic measure of merging with the Aurora supercomputer unit in an attempt to win over Samus, but was unsuccessful. Samus won and destroyed the corrupted supercomputer which put the planet into an unstable state, forcing her to make a quick getaway. With Phaaze destroyed, she was able to get free of the Phazon corruption and get back into her ship, which now recognized her, and get off the planet and back into Federation space, hopefully leaving the Phazon corruption in her wake for good.

After the destruction of Phaaze, Samus is sent on a mission (taking place during Metroid 2: Samus’ Return) to eradicate the entire Metroid population, now that Phazon was no longer an issue and they were the biggest threat to the galaxy. She went to the planet of SR388, fought with the Queen Metroid, won and destroyed the Metroid population along with her. But it wasn’t a complete genocide; one last Metroid hatched from an egg, and instead of killing the infant Metroid she brought it back to Ceres Space Colony so that they could perform research on it. Maybe she should have killed it and been done with it, but as we know Samus was a very compassionate person and I don’t know if she had it in her.

In perfect space pirate fashion, as soon as Samus left the Ceres Space Colony, she got a distress signal that it was under attack. She returned to find the scientists dead and the baby Metroid missing. This is where the events of Super Metroid take place. And it wouldn’t be a Samus rescue mission if she didn’t encounter Ridley, who was holding the baby Metroid. He was able to flee before the colony station was put in self-destruct mode and she was forced to retreat and follow the space pirates to a rebuilt Zebes to finish them off and retrieve the baby. If there’s two things you can always count on in a Metroid game, it’s that there’s a self-destruct escape sequence and a fight with Ridley.

On Zebes once again, Samus learns that she really needs to learn the second rule of Zombieland– the double tap– when she encounters several enemies she had previously defeated like Kraid. Proceeding deeper into the facility, she finds a myriad of Metroids along with her precious baby, which was now far larger than when she left it. It thanks her for its life with a little kiss that drains Samus’ power suit to 1 energy.

Once she had time to recover from her not-so-happy reunion with the Metroid, Samus made her way to Mother Brain. And I know what you’re thinking… is Samus capable of killing anything? And I’m not really sure if she is. As badass as she is, she doesn’t seem to stick around to make sure that her messes are properly cleaned up. So, Samus destroyed Mother Brain’s containment chamber, and Mother Brain rose from the platform with a giant mech body. As she is running and gunning, Samus was greeted by the not-so-baby Metroid who helps Samus by occasionally replenishing her energy tanks. The Metroid attempted to assault Mother Brain directly, but was killed in the process. And it turned out that by being given energy from the Metrod, Samus’ weapons overcharged giving her massive firepower which she used to hopefully finish off Mother Brain. Cue the self-destruct sequence and subsequent escape from the planet, and Zebes exploded entirely, leaving nothing behind.

A few months after the Zebes incident, Samus (who was no longer under Federation contract), received a distress signal coming from a station known as the Bottle Ship which took place during the events of Metroid: Other M. Shortly after landing, she came into contact with a Federation platoon led by her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich. No longer under contract, the federation platoon largely ignored Samus and didn’t play particularly nice with her. However, they realised that they needed her help and Malkovich agreed to work with her so long as she explicitly followed orders from him.

On her journey, she discovered that the Federation had been, against protocol, genetically modifying the lifeforms aboard the ship to be used as bioweapons, because why would they be doing anything normal like studying culinary arts. They also dispatched an assassin who would take care of anyone who learned about their activities and that assassin was in the platoon that was on board the Bottle Ship. Much to her surprise, and because the devs just can’t give up, it turned out that Mother Brain’s AI was used to create an android that could control Metroids. But what’s that you say? The Metroid were wiped out?! Yeah, we thought that, too. We also thought that Ridley was dead for sure, but DNA from Samus’ power suit was used to clone him, bringing him to life again.

Samus obviously had to deal with all of these problems herself since the Federation was now secretly involved. Along the way, she found one of the scientists and learned that they accidentally created another Queen Metroid. Now… You can accidentally burn grilled cheese. You can accidentally stub your toe. I don’t know how someone managed to accidentally create a Queen Metroid. That’s like saying I accidentally shot a man 37 times in the chest. I’m starting to think it was intentional and you’re just lying, Madeline.

So Samus defeated the Queen Metroid, shut down the Mother Brain android, and left the Bottle Ship which had been marked for destruction by the Federation, but Samus was way ahead of the Federation and triggered a self-destruct, in typical Samus style, and escaped.

Then there were the events of Metroid Fusion, where Samus was hired to go back to SR388, where she wiped out the Metroid population, to protect some researchers who were studying some of the other lifeforms on the planet. While exploring an underground cavern, she encountered a Hornoad with a missile before being infected with an X-Parasite which we mentioned way back with the Chozo. While heading back to the research station, she loses control of herself to the X-Parasite, losing consciousness and crashing her ship into a nearby asteroid belt. After being ejected in an escape pod, the scientists found her and transported her to the Galactic Federation headquarters.

Since Samus was infected, so was her suit. The power suit had to be surgically removed, but they could only remove portions without damaging her body too badly. However, she was still infected and wasn’t given a very high chance of survival. Thankfully, someone was able to manufacture a vaccine developed from the DNA of the infant metroid from way back when. This vaccine is able to rid the X-Parasite from Samus’ body, while giving her the power to absorb it to regain health and weapons without killing her. Once she recovered, she was given a new ship, clad in the Fusion suit, and was sent back to the research station she was at previously to investigate a large explosion.

Her goal was to find out what happened, rescue any survivors, and retrieve the specimens that they were researching. She found out that the specimens were all infected with the X-Parasite, so she had to find a way to eliminate it. Along the way, the X-Parasite took the form of Samus and was known as SA-X, or Samus Aran X. Very clever. Because the X-Parasite reproduced asexually and could take the form of other lifeforms like Samus, this was a massive issue.

While trying to escape from the hell that was this research station, she ran into another one of the specimens that the researchers were working on, and it was the cryogenically frozen remains of Ridley. Just when you thought we were rid of him, his eyes glowed as Samus approached his frozen body and she was forced to fight a version of Ridley that was infected with the X-Parasite. And, of course, she won again proving that dinosaurs should stay extinct.

Having taken an interest in the X-Parasite, the Federation began closing in on the research station to get their grubby little hands on it before the station had a chance to be destroyed. Trying to find a solution, Samus, along with her new ship’s computer, decided that the best course of action was to redirect the station’s orbit so that when the station was destroyed, SR388 would be blown up as well, taking care of the X-Parasite issue for good.

Before she reached the control room to facilitate the plan, she was interrupted by the SA-X who she was able to defeat and reduce to a form that she could absorb with her suit, but it escaped before she could do so. Setting the controls and heading back to her ship, she found an Omega Metroid waiting in her ship’s place. The Omega Metroid was basically a version of a Metroid that, instead of being the floating jellyfish headcrab that we all know and love, looked almost like a dinosaur with two legs and two arms, both boasting massive claws.

Samus was attacked by the Omega Metroid, leaving her on the brink of death when the SA-X made an appearance and stopped the Omega Metroid from killing Samus with an ice beam. The Omega Metroid lashed out, reducing the SA-X to its base X form which allowed Samus the time to absorb it and gain the ice beam attack, which she used to defeat the Omega Metroid. Her ship returned in the knick of time so that she could escape and watch as the research station collided with SR388 and blew them both up.

Then, after an undetermined amount of time, Samus received yet another mission from the Federation. An X-Parasite was seen on a planet known as ZDR, and Samus was tasked with investigating it after the Federation’s robots, the EMMI, that they sent in went missing. It turned out that, on the planet, there was a Chozo named Quiet Robe who informed Samus of the one responsible for the EMMI’s disappearance– another Chozo named Raven Beak, who was trying to get Samus’ DNA through the robots.

Raven Beak wanted Samus’ DNA because at this point it was fused with Metroid DNA from all of her missions, and he was going to use it to take over the Galaxy. Samus said no, accidentally released an X-Parasite from containment, and ruined his plans by embracing her Metroid DNA to go sicko mode and killed Raven Beak, destroying ZDR in the process. These were the events of Metroid Dread.

And it does not pain me to say that this is the end of Samus’ adventures to date. I never realised how derivative of the original Metroid the other games were until this point, and the ones that were definitively not derivative were the ones that were met with the most criticism like Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid: Other M. As much as I love this series, and the Metroidvania genre will always be one of my favourites, I really hope that they continue with the trend of Metroid Dread and create entirely new waves for the series. I think we need to take a permanent break from Mother Brain and Ridley, or I might go insane.

I honestly couldn’t bring myself to be less mocking of some of these games as I was going over the plot of them because so many of them are just the same game over and over and over again, which is fine but I wish that they would have created some new threats instead of constantly resurrecting old nemesis’ for the sake of nostalgia. One resurrection is enough for me. I don’t need to fight Ridley 8 times. But, that’s my opinion and I respect it if it’s not yours!

So that brings us to the end where I ask, what do you think? Did you know about the manga and Samus’ backstory before the games? Or, what do you think of the genre in general?

You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media or podcast websites. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please send me a message wherever you can find me, or at loredtodeath@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

And remember, if a dinosaur comes and kills your whole family in front of your eyes, become a vigilante. Everyone loves a good comeback story, and once you can get over your PTSD you can also become a strong independent woman who don’t need no man… or batman. Dealer’s choice.

And I’ll lore you to death in the next episode. C’ya.