For the Fridge pages of each Metroid Prime Trilogy game:
Fridge Pages are Spoilers Off, all spoilers below are unmarked!
Fridge Brilliance
- How did the Chozo manage to hide power-ups for Samus' armor on every random planet she happens to visit in the Prime Trilogy? They were a hyper-advanced civilization who could basically see the future, that's how. The Prime logs tell a cohesive story about why Samus finds power-ups wherever she goes, involving ascendancy of the Chozo and their foretelling her arrival: All the upgrades and information left on Tallon IV were specifically left there for her. In Corruption, the Chozo are said to give technology to other races as gifts. Indeed, some upgrades are found in shrines and one was even near a "friendship monument" between the Chozo and Bryyonians. The latter also explains why there are so many places around the area requiring Samus' tech to navigate. The native species received them from the Chozo as a gift and used them themselves, naturally the one Samus finds is useful in pretty much every Chozo-contacted planet she goes to. This also explains why the Light and Dark beams in Echoes are the only energy weapons in continuity to have limited ammo: they're not Chozo weapons. In fact, they're the only beams she gets that aren't Chozo-made, or specifically designed for her current suit's architecture. The Luminoth made them, presumably using their own energy manipulation methods. Even with the transfer module, the Power Suit doesn't produce the right sort of energy to properly fuel the beams, only the charged single shot in an absolute pinch. It also explains why she doesn't have the light or dark suits, beams, or visors in Corruption; they'd have situational use to her at best, so she left them with their creators. Chozo power armor is also frequently constructed using a modular system, and a large number of civilizations are believed to have based their technology on Chozo designs. Even if the Chozo didn't foresee Samus' arrival and deliberately leave behind suit upgrades for her to find, there's still a chance that she'd stumble across compatible upgrades in the ruins of these civilizations.
- Considering Samus was exceptionally powerful and fast in other entries in the series, having her be a slower and more methodical character in Prime mostly seems like a change for the sake of genre design. But then it makes total sense: Prime is a prequel to Return of Samus and Super on the timeline, and the first two games predate Zero Mission as well. The game preceding Prime was the original, where Samus at her slowest and clunkiest, long before she gained things like the Speed Booster and walljumping, among many other skills. This makes the trilogy sort of a bridging gap for her overall power between the first game and the subsequent titles expanding everything.
- It may seem stupid of the Space Pirates in Echoes to initially confuse Dark Samus for Samus - the two behave completely differently. However, it's possible that the latest records the Pirates had on Samus were from Tallon IV. This means the last time they saw her she was wearing the Phazon Suit, a pitch-black suit that can manipulate Phazon similar to Dark Samus. They were quite justified in their mistake.
- If you count Weavel's encounter with Samus in Hunters, this wouldn't work unless he didn't update his fellow Space Pirates on her status (or word didn't get out soon enough).
- The Pirates' use of Phazon seems to have a much lower rate of fatalities in Corruption than the two games before it. But then again, in the first game the Pirates had discovered how to drastically increase the survival rates when using the stuff in Project Vertigo. This tech got into Samus's suit when she fused with the Omega Pirate and got the Phazon Suit, which was then stolen by Dark Samus. She knew from the get-go how to properly use Phazon without a high fatality rate.
Fridge Horror
- All the abandoned or nigh-abandoned planets Samus visits over the course of the Prime games paint the image of a sad and nearly post-apocalyptic galaxy. The Chozo are missing, the Luminoth were nearly brought to extinction, the Reptilicus were driven to war and savagery, and the Elysians were all but annihilated. Even the Alimbics from Hunters were reduced to a spiritual plane and no longer possess bodies. Meanwhile, the Galactic Federation is desperately grasping at what is left of civilization in an attempt to save it from the Space Pirates and other cosmic horrors - they even resort to hiring bounty hunters and mercenaries most of the time, since they are simply outgunned and outnumbered. It just goes to show how even the most mighty of civilizations are ultimately fleeting in the scope of time.
- Starts to put in perspective why Samus is always referred to as such a brilliant glimmer of hope in space... there isn't much hope left to be found anywhere.
- The dawning horror of the threat of Phazon must have been terrifying to witness first-hand. Samus first finds the Pirates on Tallon IV messing with Phazon and blows up the Metroid Prime. Those sure were some freaky Elite Pirates and Metroids, but it's over, right? Wrong; the Pirates are back at it again on Aether, where the Phazon is beginning to impersonate Samus as Dark Samus, and even mutates the grand Emperor Ing. But it's all gone after that, right? Nope; it all comes to a head as Samus herself is corrupted by the stuff, and a galactic war breaks out over it with her old doppelganger leading the charge...
