Line #45 Headscratchers/MetroidPrime


1	* In the NA version of Prime 1, some Space Pirate logs talk about the Metroid Prime, discussing the armor they made for it, its morphology, etc. However, the Metroid Prime lives in the Impact Crater, and the Space Pirates never make their way to the Impact Crater itself, thanks to the Chozo Artifacts. So how do they even ''know'' about the Metroid Prime?
2	** They supposedly found it wandering around in a tunnel while they were drilling. This opens up the rather large plot hole of why didn't they just keep on drilling if the crater barrier isn't as impassible as previously thought, which is probably why it was changed in the European and Trilogy versions...but then ''that'' opens the plot hole of why does Prime have obviously artificial weapons (missile launchers etc.) on its first form if none of the technologically-advanced races made contact with it?
3	** The first form ''you'' see isn't the first form ''they'' saw. Wasn't there a log that said it assimilated their weapons? And since they were developing Beam Troopers at some point, and the pirates with packs have missiles...
4	** The problem is that that log was changed in the EU version and Trilogy, which means that canonically, no, the Pirates never directly encountered it and thus it couldn't steal their weapons. That's why this particular JBM discussion is even taking place.
5	** Could just be that a few Pirates got lucky and stumbled across it, but were killed and had their weapons stolen. That would explain why they never logged about finding it: they never survived the encounter.
6	* The easiest explanation to the North American is that the pirates found it but it escaped. Then the Chozo sealed it away under the temple that contained the bulk of Phazon.
7	** Nah, the Pirate Logs show that the Chozo were long gone by the time the Space Pirates arrived, with the Temple and Artifacts already identified as blocking the Impact Crater prior to the encounter with Metroid Prime.
8	** Except the Chozo came back briefly to seal away phazon and their own logs detail the pirate's failures. The Chozo just left because they couldn't handle being around phazon too long. Further the pirates do talk about encounters with ghosts, they don't realize those "ghosts" are the returning Chozo.
9	** It makes a lot more sense that the pirates' weapons were involved in Metroid Prime's armor, since they match, but since you find identical discarded armor on Phaaze, it's clear that's no longer canon. Instead that's just a natural part of the Metroid Prime life cycle.
10	*** The Space Pirates didn't create Metroid Prime's carapace in any version. Even in the original NA version, it was specifically a phazon mutation.
11	** However, it has just occurred to me that A) phazon can affect machines as well as animals and B) phazon turns out to be one huge spanning conciousness. Maybe it just copied the pirates' weapons remotely and started adding it to each new phazon metroid. It'd explain those fission metroids that have weaknesses to specific samus-beams.
12	*** Or it just grabbed some Chozo weapons when it fought them. That also has the advantage of explaining why its beam weapons have the special effects when the Space Pirates were never able to copy those.
13	* An easy solution to that is that Metroid Prime stole Chozo originals before being sealed away. This has the bonus of explaining why Prime's weapons have the special effects that the Space Pirates were unable to replicate.
14	* Here's my theory on the issue. We don't know what the leviathan's journey was like. For all we know, it plowed through a space pirate ship somewhere along the line, and some weaponry was embedded into the leviathan, as well as a Metroid. Upon landing on Tallon IV, the PAL/Trilogy version of events happened.
15	* This whole situation is actually a result of ContinuityDrift. Keep in mind, when Metroid Prime was being developed, the only games we had in the series were Metroid, Metroid II, and Super Metroid. The origins of the metroids themselves were still a mystery. Metroid Fusion would reveal that the Chozo created the metroids on SR388 to serve as a predator for the X, but that game wasn't out yet (indeed, it came out on the same day this game did), so the metroids were much more of a mystery. Keep in mind that the NA Gamecube version of Metroid Prime was an early/unfinished version (they kept working on the game for 8 more months, resulting in a FAR more complete/polished version for EU). In the NA release, Metroid Prime really was a phazon-mutated metroid. After the reveal of the origin of metroids in Fusion (and the "how did it get into the impact crater when it was sealed" plot hole), Retro decided to go a different direction with the story, resulting in EU lore becoming canon (as that version was the basis for the Wii Trilogy version in the US). This ended up causing Metroid Prime to become an ArtifactTitle. In the future, the title would be used for all 3D games in the series, while the 2D games kept the original Metroid title. We actually never found out what the "Metroid Prime" creature was in the updated lore...it's never explained.
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17	* Why did the Pirates build doors too small for themselves? I'm not even talking elite or Phazon variants either. Luring a bog standard Space Pirate to a door reveals that they're about a foot taller than the doors of their facilities.
18	** In the space ship/crash site, you can see MASSIVE doors. Those are probably 100% space pirate. As for the others, they either scavenged them from chozo stuff, and simply duck through the doorways.
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20	* Of all the things that Samus learned about Phazon from her experiences, one would think it might be pertinent to figure out what happened to the Gravity Suit when it was dunked in Phazon, turning it into the Phazon Suit. It has no negative effects on the wearer (at least as long as they're inside the suit) and in fact makes their resilience higher as well as protects them from the effects of blue Phazon. This seems like it might have been useful to try and replicate later once it was known that Phazon is a galaxy-wide problem.
21	** Except we do know what happened. The suit was infected by the vertigo strand retro virus, which infuses phazon into a subject in a less deadly, less violent madness inducing manner. That's how the Elite Pirates and Omega Pirate were created in the first place. Now Samus does have some knowledge of biology but at no point in the games is she seen with the resources necessary to duplicate that.
22	* The events of ''Metroid Prime'', and indeed the Prime subseries as a whole, began when Samus responded to an open distress signal coming from a research vessel. It turned out to belong to the Space Pirates, so she blasted them repeatedly and then followed their evacuating leader to one of their newer bases of operation on Tallon IV. Let me say that again. The ''Space Pirates'', [[AlwaysChaoticEvil galactic menaces]], sent out an ''open distress signal''. What were they ''thinking?''
23	** "Oh crap, the experiments got loose! We're all going to die!" ...No, seriously: they probably figured that since they controlled the only remaining habitable planet in the system and Samus hadn't yet found their little hidey-hole on Tallon IV (Pirate Data "Fall of Zebes"), the only people who would hear their distress call would be their fellow Pirates planetside.
24	** The Pirates have always bordered on being TooDumbToLive, the distress call being just one more example. They even start lampshading it by ''Prime 2,'' in which you start seeing individual Pirate logs busting on the colossal stupidity of High Command and the Science Team. ("Science Team thinks the Metroids can be domesticated... I think Science Team has vapour for brains; I've already lost five troopers to the miserable little parasites.")
25	** The distress signals were most likely encrypted, like most of their data. Samus is seen to have technology to break their encryption (which the Pirates eventually realise, exasperating them to no end), which would have allowed her to know that there was a vulnerable pirate research station within range.
26	** Wasn't the distress signal she picked up automated? The computer realising some of the escape pods had been launched? But even assuming the pirates intentionally sent out the distress call, they might have counted on their ability to overwhelm most people who might have responded.
27	*** In the first case, why didn't they disable the automated signal (or install one in the first place if they made the vessel themselves)? And as for the second point, why would they add "overwhelm the arriving forces" to their list of troubles when they are already getting wiped out by the experiments?
28	** I always just assumed the whole distress call scenario was a means to lure do-gooders into a trap. Judging from the situation when Samus arrives, it might just be an attempt at luring weak targets in gone wrong.
29	* Where is the Impact Crater level located? Is it inside the large hunk of floating earth that the Artifact Temple sits on top of, or is it underground and beneath the crater itself?
30	** The floating rock happens to resemble the leviathans from the third game, and since the inside of the leviathans was intentionally modeled after the interior of the impact crater, it 's easy to determine that it's in the rock.
31	** I'm inclined to disagree. Based on the fact that you can see said floating piece of rock from the elevators as you go deeper into the Phazon Mines, and the largest amounts of phazon are down in the mines, I'd say that it's in the crater beneath the rock, hence why you also go so damn deep fighting Prime, with each phase bringing you deeper.
32	** Also, the Impact Crater level is decently large. I doubt it would all fit in that floating rock, especially considering how much of the rock is taken up by the temple. The glass bridge that leads to the temple is roughly in the middle of the rock, leaving little room below it for the WombLevel that is the Impact Crater.
33	** But it makes sense that the highest Phazon concentrations would be near the Crater; It's been leaking out of the seed for years. The fact remains that the Leviathans in prime 3 were [[WordofGod modeled after that floating rock.]]
34	** It's more likely that the Chozo excavated the Leviathan as part of the process of building the Cypher. They pulled it out of the crater, then built their sealing mechanism around it.
35	** It's inside the crater itself.
36	* If ''Metroid Prime'' takes place right after the original ''Metroid'' and/or ''Metroid: Zero Mission'', then how did Samus get the Grapple Beam that she loses during the beginning of ''Prime''? The Grapple Beam wasn't a power up in either the original or ''Zero Mission''.
37	** The Prime version of the grapple beam is different than the Super Metroid version. It's explicitly stated to be ''Federation'' technology, used in sporting events, is more or less non damaging, and has a different launching point (on the left arm as opposed to the arm cannon). She could have picked one up shopping, or at some outpost like Norion. Prime 3 renames it the Grapple ''Lasso'' to clear up any confusion.
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39	* If Samus loses all of her energy, she dies instantly. There's no way to finish off a foe and get some desperately-needed health. Yet in the ending, she had no problem taking off the helmet entirely. Is the air just not toxic anymore?
40	** The air was never toxic - as a Chozo world, Tallon IV was always hospitable to life (see that they also lived on Zebes, where Samus herself grew up, proving that Chozo and human life have the same requirements). I've always imagined that when the suit runs out of energy, [[FridgeHorror Samus has no way to move in it or take it off and it just becomes her coffin]]. Either that or the suit's power source explodes and kills Samus. Or GameplayAndStorySegregation.
41	** I think it's fairly safe to assume that whatever's making her suit lose energy kills her. It's not like the batteries just die because she forgot to recharge it, when her energy hits 0 it's because she's either under attack or up to her neck in lava or something.
42	** Except that it's possible that whatever attack manages to take the last unit of her energy, and not one whit more. Her Power Beam has infinite ammo, so she should be able to keep fighting. Alternately, she should've rigged up some way for the Power Beam's energy source to recharge her shields' energy. It would be kind of a cool mechanic if you lost the Power Beam's offensive capability and had to run away on your weaker jury-rigged backup, if someone wanted to make a "tactical" Metroid ripoff. They'd have to lose the "shoot the doors" thing, though, unless missiles would also work, or the Power Beam was still usable, just much weaker. The player might even have to choose between no Beam at all and more energy, and a weak Beam and less energy. Heck, why couldn't they use that sort of thing in Other M instead of "Concentration" or whatever system it was that had the fanboys crying bloody murder?
43	** Or maybe that last piece of shield energy means the shield isn't going to save you anymore but you're still alive for now, get hit again and you'll die. [[CriticalAnnoyance Hence the warning.]]
44	** It is explicitly shown that Samus's Suit dissapates once it reaches zero energy in the 2d metroid games, so I guess that the same applies for prime. She may be superhumanly strong, tough, and agile even without her suit, but she is still reduced to having just her zero suit (with no energy for it's shields) and her pistol, this means that whatever reduced her to zero energy can now kill her pretty easily.
45	** It's said that the suit is partially organic and somewhat fused with Samus. It's possible that when she loses the energy from the suit, she loses energy as well. Like, how the Metroids kill things, by draining energy.
46	** The above theory is further supported by the fact that Metroids are also Chozo Technology.
47	** The game over screens are pretty clear on the matter: In Prime 1, you see Samus's suit screen go black in first-person and then her head tilting limply over in third-person. She is unconscious or dead. In Prime 2, we see an EKG reader flat-lining. In Prime 3, there's simply a screen with seeping ''blood'' on it. Samus clearly comes to bodily harm once the suit shuts down. With no energy, it's just a hunk of metal, and metal is easily melted by Pirate plasma shots or ripped open by the vicious creatures she always faces.
48	** Which becomes funny if Samus's suit runs out of energy because she lightly grazed the side of a Geemer. Horrible way to die.
49	** It's also possible that once the energy goes out, the suit's joints can't move anymore, and thus Samus is trapped inside until she dies of thirst, starvation, or [=CO2=] Poisoning. This is actually TruthInTelevision with real life experimental powered armor; and one of the main limitations on the technology.
50	** The suit is not something tangible she takes on and off. Her suit is genetically a part of her from chozo technology. It is just a projected exo skeleton made from energy reserves. You can see her phase it in and out at will in other games. This is also why she is able to take the form of the morph ball and change shape, or absorb map data, weapons and some other life forms. Different intergrations allow her to change her suits form. She can also lose data by tramatic shock which we see often. It is the same energy technology behind the birth of the metroids and why the space pirates want to learn how to make it. In prime, the pirates even attempted to make their own morphball through the phaszon mutations.(its in a log) When her energy reserves are lowered to zero from the suit rebuilding or sheilding samus, it becomes unstable leading it to release what little energy it has left in an explosion. You can see this in almost every game with her suit exploding/imploding into a brilliant light. Because it is so intergrated into samuses genetics, she goes with it. Her helmet, depending on the game is made by the galatic feds to give her information. Some games it goes with the suit and others she can take it off.
51	** If it's grafted to her genes, then it's entirely possible that the energy depletion eventually causes deterioration on a cellular level... of the system's functions, the shield would be the one most likely to guzzle power, since that requires physically compensating for some ''really'' heavy blows, while the power beam requires no more effort than punching someone in the face would, and the scan visor and others only have to use as much energy as it would take to power the computers (which, given how efficient ours already are and that Chozo tech is undoubtedly better still, probably wouldn't be all that much). Thus, when the shield depletes the suit's battery, there's no more power to be had from it, and it'd have to pick up potential elsewhere... what's probably happening isn't so much the suit locking up so much as malfunctioning by turning Samus into a no-longer-living battery.
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53	* It's stated on scanning the Beam Trooper Pirates that the Pirates have reverse-engineered Samus' weapons and applied them to the Pirate armor, or just the Pirates themselves to genetically alter them. By reverse-engineer I assume they mean they can now use them, not "now they'll be weak to only one beam." What in the hell is the point of this experiment then when all the Beam Troopers fire yellow blasts that only resemble the Power Beam at best, and just a generic blast of energy at worst, while never taking on the properties or colors of the other beams?
54	** Presumably they were meant to use those beams against you, but the programmers likely just made the Power Trooper and then copy-pasted it with different colors; forgetting or finding it too hard to apply the projectile as well. Another reason could be that getting frozen/burned or shocked with homing beams made those pirates way too hard. The boring beams they fire can already take a toll on you.
55	** Well, the log entry on each of them DOES say that they're nothing compared to Samus's superior Chozo originals. I don't think the space pirates had access to any of the original beams, except the possibility of the plasma beam given its location and geothermal pipes in the room.

Context Headscratchers / MetroidPrime