History Fridge / MetroidOtherM

** Alternatively, Ridley's previous deaths took place between large spans of time - for example, there's supposedly two years between ''Zero Mission'' and ''Prime'', and there's at least six months between ''Echoes'' and ''Corruption'', giving Samus plenty of time to process the events and understand a gradual comeback. She also had every reason to think he was gone for good, since his remains were consumed in the explosion of an ''entire planet'', not to mention he shouldn't have been able to be revived by his subordinates since they all died too. However, ''Other M'' happens mere ''weeks'' after ''Super''. He's not only supposed to be dead, but he came back in record time!

* Samus' reaction to seeing Ridley seems incredibly out of character, until you realize that, at least according to some sources, Ridley had never truly ''died'' until ''Super Metroid'', the game before this one. It's not that she's scared of Ridley, it's that she's freaking out because he's ''supposed to be dead''.
** Alternatively, Ridley's previous deaths took place between large spans of time - for example, there's supposedly two years between ''Zero Mission'' and ''Prime'', and there's at least six months between ''Echoes'' and ''Corruption'', giving Samus plenty of time to process the events and understand a gradual comeback. However, ''Other M'' is pretty much directly after ''Super''. He's not only supposed to be dead, but he came back in record time!
*** Keep in mind that while the game begins right after Super Metroid, there's a bit of a timeskip between the start of the game and when Samus goes to the Bottle Ship. After the intro, Samus monologues about how so much time had passed since the Space Pirates' final defeat in Super Metroid that they had become a distant memory by the time Other M's plot properly starts. Not only had Samus correctly assumed that (the original) Ridley had been KilledOffForReal, but it had been quite a long time since that happened, so she had every reason to think he was gone for good because he effectively ''was'' until he was accidentally cloned.
** It's also plausible that she's freaking out because he's FORCING her to, with the same psychic power that he uses to control the space pirates and regain all his self-ness over multiple incarnations. Higgs is only not affected because he takes Ridley by surprise.
** One also has to consider several other factors in this reaction as well. Ridley is Samus's mortal enemy as the one who ultimately is the cause of her parents' deaths. Also, Samus herself is still experiencing a period of deep mourning over the Metroid Hatchling and her failure to keep it safe. Samus has likely been carrying old wounds for a long time already given her early life, but given her PTSD in this entry and the sudden sight of the creature who has been the cause of familial death not once but twice if you include the Hatchling as a surrogate "child" appearing before her, and it makes a bit more sense that she's freaking out and freezing up when emotions overwhelm her senses for a moment.

%%Examples of Fridge Logic don't go on this page but on the Headscratchers page.

* Other M just seems like a random subtitle until you notice as an acronym it reads "MOM". Also if you place the M before Other it reads "Mother" signifying Samus's "relationship" with the baby Metroid and [[spoiler:MB's relationship with Madeline Bergman]].
** In fact, the "Other M" in the title probably refers to [[spoiler: MB, since she is an alternate Mother Brain.]]
*** Take a look at [[spoiler:the fake]] Madeleine Bergman's hairclip. Remind you of anything? [[spoiler:It looks like the red nuclei in the core of a Metroid.]]
** Also, Madeline Bergman warns us about MB. For a while, some could think that it was just the initials for ''Mother Brain''. [[spoiler:It's in fact a little more complicated, since they played with those initials: MB are the initials for Mother Brain, but also the initials of the director of the project, Madeline Bergman. We are lead to think that MB and Madeline Bergman are in fact one and the same person, but it's a RedHerring: MB stands for Melissa Bergman, who impersonated her own ''mother''.]]
** [[spoiler:Phantoon is the extra boss. Anyone remember what section he was the boss of in Super Metroid? The Ghost Ship. At the end of the game, Samus is all alone on the BOTTLE SHIP, making it a ghost ship]].
** A possible explanation about why [[spoiler:the baby Metroid in Super Metroid got so dang BIG: It was destined to be a Queen.]]
** Ever wonder how [[spoiler:Nightmare]] and [[spoiler:Ridley's remains]] end up on the Biologic Space Labs in ''Fusion''? Ever enter the rooms those two bosses' remains are left in during ''Other M's'' postgame portion only to notice that their remains are now missing?
*** Also, ever wonder why Ridley's body collapses so easily in ''Metroid Fusion'' when you encounter it in the freezer? That's not the sort of thing you usually see frozen corpses do. Unless, of course, [[spoiler: that frozen corpse was drained of all its energy by a Queen Metroid and turned into a dry, gray husk]].
** Samus' reaction to seeing Ridley seems incredibly out of character, until you realize that, at least according to some sources, Ridley never actually ''died'' until Super Metroid, the game before this one. It's not that she's scared of Ridley, it's that she's freaking out because he's ''supposed to be dead''.
*** Alternatively, Ridley's previous deaths took place between large spans of time. Other M is right after Super. He's not only supposed to be dead, he came back in record time!
*** Ridley didn't come back from the dead though. This was just a clone, and not the first clone she had seem on the ship even. So no, it doesn't make sense because she should have anticipated the possibility.
*** Well, yeah, she should expect a clone, but not of ''Ridley''. For all she knew, all his DNA got destroyed when Zebes exploded.

** It's also plausible that she's freaking out because he's FORCING her to, with the same psychic power that he uses to control the space pirates and regain all his self-ness over multiple incarnations. Higgs is only not affected because he takes Ridley by surprise.

* Adam locks the doors behind you to keep you on the linear path. Due to a GameBreakingBug, a door becomes locked making progress impossible. Or in other words, Adam locks you in the Pyrosphere with no way out ForTheEvulz.

* Adam locks the doors behind you to keep you on the linear path. Due to a GameBreakingBug, a door becomes locked making progress impossible. Or in other words, Adam locks you in the Pyrosphere with no way out ForTheEvulz.

!!FridgeLogic
* The authorization system falls apart as an excuse to withold upgrades the moment Samus collects the only two new abilities in this game and immediately activates both upon acquiring them ''without waiting for Adam's permission''.
** Falls further in the implementation, all authorizations are treated like permanent upgrades which makes no sense in the narrative. For example, Samus is restricted from using the Wave Beam which follows a similar rational logic as the Power Bomb restriction in that its shots aren't easily stopped by solid walls so one stray shot could potentially harm a survivor or ally several rooms away. Samus is later contained in a glass box assaulted by Wave Beam like shots making her only way out being to return fire the same way and she gets the authorization, so far so good. But for the rest of the game you can use the Wave Beam freely because it was required that one single time. Authorizations aren't based on what is necessary for the mission at a given time like you'd expect, they're based on what is necessary at SOME point in the mission which makes it pretty clear that they had no intention at all at making the system make sense, they just wanted a throw away excuse for the Bag of Spilling format.
* The Power Suit working like a HenshinHero's completely breaks ''Fusion''[='s=] ''entire plot''. Being in a coma implies a lack of concentration. Hell, it even breaks other parts of ''Other M'''s plot: how the hell did the Feds scrape Metroid goo off the Suit without her knowledge?
** To add to those examples: How did the Feds retrieve genetic material off of her suit while she was unconscious?
*** Perhaps the armor does exist out of a concentration, but can be summoned/activated by it?
*** If she merely uses concentration to summon the suit and it can be maintained when she isn't concentrating, then that breaks a fair chunk of both the Ridley scene and the Adam sacrifice scene, and we're right back where we started. Either way, it's a plothole.
** A proper explanation is as follows: During PTSD, her mind enters an unstable state which the suit interprets as her mind being about to shut down, thus it starts to shut down by itself. When she entered the coma in ''Fusion'', it was too late for her suit to revert, because large portions of her Power Suit were corrupted by the X parasites. Accounting the fact her mind shut down too fast, the suit could never revert to its natural state.
*** That's stretching it extremely far. The suit meant to defend individuals likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress in fact has a defect that prevents it from defending people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress? Proper explanation? Hardly, that just raises more questions.
** As for how they scraped off the Metroid DNA from her suit? What if there was a purification chamber she had to go through, which would wash off anyone's suit in seconds? Considering what we have seen of several Sci-fi games, this is the most suitable explanation.
** We don't know how much time passed between ''Other M'' and ''Fusion''. Maybe Samus took an older or newer suit model to [=SR388=].
* Although withholding weapons can be justified as not wanting to cause unnecessary damage, there's never a good reason for withholding defensive gear like the Varia Suit.
** Well, one can figure that Adam didn't want Samus to have full run of the ship, if she could potentially be the Deleter, so he wouldn't want to authorize the Varia Suit unless necessary, but its sorta hard to figure out the reason from Samus's end. Unless perhaps she was playing everything by the book (taking the outsider comment from Adam a bit harshly) to the point of saying "Fine I won't even use 10% of what I can do without authorization 'Sir'." Of course, this explanation seems rather stretched to this troper, but it is possible.
*** That doesn't hold water. I can accept Samus willingly accepting the Authorization system just because she said she would, but there's just no good reason for restricting defensive gear. Going with what you said above, it makes far more sense for Adam to just say "I forbid you from going into the fire section" than it does to restrict the Varia suit which instead says "You can go into the fire area if you want but I want it to hurt you". Made worse in that he does eventually want her to go into the fire section but still restricts her.
*** Also, Adam has no reason to suspect that there's a traitor among his crew from the start. Samus figures that out on her own, so I would figure the most powerful Bounty Hunter in the Galaxy claiming that there's a traitor would give Adam the idea "Hey maybe I should let her use more of her stuff so that the traitor doesn't kill anyone on my team".
*** Note that when Adam finally tells her to turn on the Varia Suit, he doesn't say "I'm authorizing the Varia feature"; he just says "Samus, activate the Varia feature". Between that and the fact that Adam ''does'' respect and care about Samus (despite it not being shown very well in the game), he probably assumed from the start that she would be smart enough to use defensive gear without him having to authorize it. Him "allowing" her to use it is more likely him coming back from checking on the status of the station and the rest of his team (if you recall, he'd mentioned that something was interfering with the marines' communication systems and he was going to be monitoring them from the command deck) and realizing that she's been waltzing through Sector 3 without using vital protective gear.

* At first, Adam's decision to [[spoiler: shoot Samus in the back]] seemed inexplicably horrible, many have even likened it to abuse and wondered why Adam didn't just [[spoiler: shoot the metroid larva]] instead. However, [[spoiler: The metroid larva]] was acting calmly until after Adam already [[spoiler: shot Samus]] so he might have thought that [[spoiler: the larva wouldn't have attacked if left alone]] and, as far as he knew, [[spoiler: Samus was about to shoot at an unkillable metroid and get it angry at her]]. Granted, in retrospect, it was a stupid idea but it kinda made sense in the heat of the moment.

** Played from Adam's side Samus's presence and overall participation and involvement is suspicious and possibly dangerous. Moreso when factoring in rumors of a possible assassin in his own ranks (that he observes over her comms but her presence like that could be...well a performance) This more than anything may explain his often overly stiff and reactionary attitude; though his trust and belief in her comes through in the end.
* Some retroactive fridge with ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion''. Why would the Federation save Samus after [[spoiler:exposed their illegal bioweapons program]]? Allowing the galaxies greatest, most famous hero to die would [[SlaveToPR make them look even worse]]. Also, it was during this time that the X Parasite's broke out of the B.S.L. space station, so they needed her to deal with that.
** So why is Samus still willing to work with the Federation? From their exploration of planet SR388, she ma have been their to see to it that their findings didn't end up in the wrong hands. Afterwards, she investigated the B.S.L. space station because the last time this happened [[a rouge A.I. almost wiped out galactic civilization]], so Samus knew too much was at stake to let any trust issues get in the way.

** Invoked in-universe by Samus when she wonders whether or not [[spoiler: Anthony]] was conscious as he burned up in lava.

** By then, [[he'd overheard Samus learn of his involvement in the bioweapon program]], so the reason Adam [[spoiler: shot her]] as opposed to talking to her is that there was a risk she wouldn't have trusted him enough to listen at that point.

*** Note that when Adam finally tells her to turn on the Varia Suit, he doesn't say "I'm authorizing the Varia feature"; he just says ''Samus, activate the Varia feature". Between that and the fact that Adam ''does'' respect and care about Samus (despite it not being shown very well in the game), he probably assumed from the start that she would be smart enough to use defensive gear without him having to authorize it. Him "allowing" her to use it is more likely him coming back from checking on the status of the station and the rest of his team and realizing that she's been waltzing through Sector 3 without using vital protective gear.

*** Also, Adam has no reason to suspect that there's a traitor among his crew from the start. Samus figures that out on her own, so I would figure the most powerful Bounty Hunter in the Galaxy claiming that there's a traitor would give Adam the idea "Hey maybe I should let her use more of her stuff so that the traitor doesn't kill anyone on my team".

* Why do both games which feature Samus behaving in non-standard ways and have Adam also deviate from every other games progression system and lore? Simple, they are Galactic Federation (Fusion) and Space Pirate (Other:M) propaganda against Samus posing that she uses Federation tech and is still afraid of Pirate Command after blowing up a handful of planets and murdering more mooks than the Soviet Union and Communist China combined.

%% Other M could be called Fridge Logic: The Game. F'rinstance consider things from Adam's perspective
%% * Metroids were officially destroyed according to whose report
%% * He opposes bio-weapons research but Samus broke protocol (an explicit extermination order) to turn over a living sample of a creature deemed too dangerous to exist to outpost science station
%% * He knows there is a faction in the GF out there trying to run around his recommendation and the standing "no bioweapons" ruling. So much so his XO and him are trying desperately to gather evidence
%% * Samus left to effectively become a one woman Blackwater after sympathetic but still less than stellar behavior and likely chasing a crusade to "rid the universe of suffering" or something akin to that or save everyone.
%% * Uh-oh, on a rush mission to uncover an illegal research conspiracy guess who just shows up and, oh yeah, could be the only source/expert for all this
%% In short played from Adam's side Samus's presence and overall participation and involvement is suspicious and possibly dangerous. Moreso when factoring in rumors of a possible assassin in his own ranks (that he observes over her comms but her presence like that could be...well a performance) This more than anything may help ease you into understanding his often overly stiff and reactionary attitude; though his trust and belief in her comes through in the end Samus, from his view, was looking as suspicious as he could be from our own
%% * At first, Adam's decision to [[spoiler: shoot Samus in the back]] seemed inexplicably horrible, many have even likened it to abuse and wondered why Adam didn't just [[spoiler: shoot the metroid larva]] instead but it makes sense if you think about it. [[spoiler: The metroid larva]] was acting calmly until after Adam already [[spoiler: shot Samus]] so he might have thought that [[spoiler: the larva wouldn't have attacked if left alone]] and, as far as he knew, [[spoiler: Samus was about to shoot at an unkillable metroid and get it angry at her]]. Granted, in retrospect, it was a stupid idea but it probably made sense to him at the time, especially in the heat of the moment.

Did Adam [[spoiler:die quickly and painlessly in Sector Zero's self-destruction]]? Or did he [[spoiler:suffer an incredibly painful and horrific death having the life sucked out of him by innumerable ice-proof Metroids]]?

*** That doesn't hold water. I can accept Samus willingly accepting the Authorization system just because she said she would, but there's just no good reason for restricting defensive gear. Going with what you said above, it makes far more sense for Adam to just say "I forbid you from going into the fire section" than it does to restrict the Varia suit which instead says "You can go into the fire area if you want but I want it to hurt you". Made worse in that he does eventually want her to go into the fire section but still restricts her.

*** Also, ever wonder why Ridley's body collapses so easily in Metroid Fusion when you encounter it in the freezer? That's not the sort of thing you usually see frozen corpses do. Unless, of course, [[spoiler: that frozen corpse was drained of all its energy by a Queen Metroid and turned into a dry, gray husk]].

* The Power Suit working like a HenshinHero's completely breaks Fusion's ''entire plot''. Being in a coma implies a lack of concentration. Hell, it even breaks other parts of Other M's plot: how the hell did the Feds scrape Metroid goo off the Suit without her knowledge?

** A proper explanation is as follows: During PTSD, her mind enters an unstable state which the suit interprets as her mind being about to shut down, thus it starts to shut down by itself. When she entered the coma in Fusion, it was too late for her suit to revert, because large portions of her Power Suit were corrupted by the X parasites. Accounting the fact her mind shut down too fast, the suit could never revert to its natural state.

** We don't know how much time passed between Other M and Fusion. Maybe Samus took an older or newer suit model to SR388.

*** That doesn't hold water. I can accept Samus willingly accepting the Authorization system just because she said she would, but there's just no good reason for restricting defensive gear. Going with what you said above, it makes far more sense for Adam to just say "I forbid you from going into the fire section" than it does to restrict the Varia suit which instead says "You can go into the fire area if you want but I want it to hurt you". Made worse in that he does eventually want her to go into the fire section but still restricts her.

Other M could be called Fridge Logic: The Game. F'rinstance consider things from Adam's perspective
* Metroids were officially destroyed according to whose report
* He opposes bio-weapons research but Samus broke protocol (an explicit extermination order) to turn over a living sample of a creature deemed too dangerous to exist to outpost science station
* He knows there is a faction in the GF out there trying to run around his recommendation and the standing "no bioweapons" ruling. So much so his XO and him are trying desperately to gather evidence
* Samus left to effectively become a one woman Blackwater after sympathetic but still less than stellar behavior and likely chasing a crusade to "rid the universe of suffering" or something akin to that or save everyone.
* Uh-oh, on a rush mission to uncover an illegal research conspiracy guess who just shows up and, oh yeah, could be the only source/expert for all this
In short played from Adam's side Samus's presence and overall participation and involvement is suspicious and possibly dangerous. Moreso when factoring in rumors of a possible assassin in his own ranks (that he observes over her comms but her presence like that could be...well a performance) This more than anything may help ease you into understanding his often overly stiff and reactionary attitude; though his trust and belief in her comes through in the end Samus, from his view, was looking as suspicious as he could be from our own
* At first, Adam's decision to [[spoiler: shoot Samus in the back]] seemed inexplicably horrible, many have even likened it to abuse and wondered why Adam didn't just [[spoiler: shoot the metroid larva]] instead but it makes sense if you think about it. [[spoiler: The metroid larva]] was acting calmly until after Adam already [[spoiler: shot Samus]] so he might have thought that [[spoiler: the larva wouldn't have attacked if left alone]] and, as far as he knew, [[spoiler: Samus was about to shoot at an unkillable metroid and get it angry at her]]. Granted, in retrospect, it was a stupid idea but it probably made sense to him at the time, especially in the heat of the moment.

** A possible explanation about why [[spoiler:the baby Metroid in Super Metroid got so dang BIG: It was destined to be a Queen; how else do you think the scientists got a Queen's DNA patterns if their only source of said DNA was the remains on Samus's suit?]]

Other M just seems like a random subtitle until you notice as an acronym it reads "MOM". Also if you place the M before Other it reads "Mother" signifying Samus's "relationship" with the baby Metroid and [[spoiler:MB's relationship with Madeline Bergman]].

** Ridley didn't come back from the dead though. This was just a clone, and not the first clone she had seem on the ship even. So no, it doesn't make sense because she should have anticipated the possibility.
* Alternately, she's freaking out because he's FORCING her to, with the same psychic power that he uses to control the space pirates and regain all his self-ness over multiple incarnations. Higgs is only not affected because he takes Ridley by surprise.

*** That's stretching it extremely far.

** A proper explanation is as follow: During PTSD, her mind enters in an unstable state in which the suit interpretates as her mind about to shut down, thus it starts to shut down by itself. When she entered the coma in Fusion, it was too late for her suit to revert, because large portions of her Power Suit were corrupted by the X parasites. Accounting the fact her mind shut down too fast, the suit could never revert to its natural state.