Chozo (Raven Beak) | Bounty Hunters | Other Antagonists | Others | Noncanonical Characters
"The feared and mysterious Space Pirates. In truth they are... a subordinate species that naturally follows the orders of a strong master. It is just like how the worker bees follow the queen bee, their hierarchical programming is decided at the genetic level."
— Mother Brain
The primary antagonists of the franchise. An inter-stellar cabal, comprised of numerous species that have rejected the Galactic Federation's democratic rule in favour of a life of thievery and conquest. As brigands, the Pirates steal any technology which will improve their cause and they subvert science to ensure the supposed superiority of their biological traits. Opportunists to the core, they care only for their own advancement as a race. And they will trample over anyone and everything to achieve that fact.
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Tropes displayed by the Pirates in general
"Death before dishonor."
- Airborne Mook: There are a number of pirates who specialize in airborne combat, like Pirate aerotroopers, flying pirates, aero mines, and preeds.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: Of the Boskone, being a multi-species collective of ship-jackers who are actually part of an authoritarian strictly controlled empire with scientific aspirations.
- Always Chaotic Evil: It's claimed any space pirates who question "The Way Things Are" are executed, sometimes on the spot. Any space pirate who expressed non-evil thoughts wouldn't have a very long life expectancy.
- According to some scans in the Prime series and some out-of-game info, not all of them are very happy with evil being the law, and certain POWs were incredibly easy to interrogate. Other scans seem to paint them more as Lawful Stupid, with common troops not being nearly as malicious or cunning as Science Team.
Of course, that's not saying much. - In Echoes, the Ing love Pirate hosts because their lawfulness makes them easier to control. In the manga and Other M, Pirates are depicted as easily commanded by beings with minor Psychic Powers like Mother Brain.
- Judging by the criticism given to High Command and Science Team, this doesn't seem to be the case. Space Pirates just don't care about ethics, possibly operating under Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- According to some scans in the Prime series and some out-of-game info, not all of them are very happy with evil being the law, and certain POWs were incredibly easy to interrogate. Other scans seem to paint them more as Lawful Stupid, with common troops not being nearly as malicious or cunning as Science Team.
- Aquatic Mook:
- Aqua pirates use technology similar to the gravity suit and Aquadrones are built to patrol the depths.
- Zebesians created by the X also have Skultera DNA, allowing them to turn their legs into fins.
- Beast of Battle:
- Turning savage alien creatures into biological weapons is one of their most common practices. The Space Pirate logs in Metroid Prime show them evaluating numerous native life forms on Tallon IV for potential use as weapons, with the Parasites being the most successful experiment until the queens got loose and killed all their guys on Frigate Orpheon. More successful projects include the mighty Korakk Beast ridden by Pirate Hussars. They also are able to make use of the Bombus, Preeds, and later Puffers to a limited extent.
- Trying to turn the titular Metroids into this is the Pirates' main goal in most of the series, though they eventually conclude that it would be more effective to just unleash the Metroids en masse in enemy territory rather than trying to tame them.
- Beware the Silly Ones: While the Space Pirates constantly fall victim or play second fiddle to the bigger threats in the series, it is worth noting that the majority of these threats are some degree of Eldritch Abomination. It's easy to forget that they're one of the most versatile, violent and feared alien races this side of the galaxy, especially since you're usually playing from the perspective of Samus. This is especially true in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption; the logs detailing their brainwashing by Dark Samus are full of Black Comedy, but this is also the game where the Pirates came closer than ever to actually winning major victories against the Federation with their new Phazon-based weapons.
- Body Horror: In their race to reverse-engineer Samus' weaponry and Power Suit, they tried to recreate her Morph Ball ability. Experiments with it ended with test subjects mangled and broken in horrific fashion. Even ignoring their efforts to copy her weapons, they subject their soldiers to all kinds of gruesome biological and cybernetic upgrades that typically drive them mad even if they manage to survive.
- Butt-Monkey: In Echoes, where they are caught in the middle of a three way war between Dark Samus, Samus herself, and the Ing, all of whom outmatch them utterly. "Surely, we are cursed."
- Comedic Sociopathy: In the Prime games, the Data logs provides a humorous side to their antics. "They were promptly shot." Followed by "They too were shot."
- Child Soldiers: If the details of the Elite Pirate experiments are anything to go by, they are willing to press their youngest into service. And by youngest, it means "genetically-altered embryos".
- Creative Sterility: Seems like it at first, because almost all of their tech is stolen or reverse-engineered from others, and in the games there is evidence that they continue to try reverse engineering new tech (Samus's morph ball for example), but, at the same time Subverted; while they steal a good deal of their technology, they are also extremely active in researching and improving their home-grown tech. The Hazard Shield (which is required for them to put up with the acid rain on their base world) is a good example.
- Deadpan Snarker: The pirates who make the logs seem to have a great love of sarcasm, which is part of what makes many of said pirate logs so hilarious.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Metroid II: Return of Samus doesn't feature any Pirates, though Samus killing off the Metroids on SR-388 is implicitly so the Pirates can no longer use them. Metroid: Samus Returns slightly changed this, showing Mother Brain and the silhouettes of Zebesians in the intro cutscene and introducing Proteus Ridley as the final boss, but the focus of the game is still on fighting the fauna and automatons of the planet.
- While the plot of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is kicked off by the Federation Marines pursuing a Pirate vessel to Aether (and Samus searching for the Marines), the main threats are the Ing and Dark Samus, and the Pirate operations are limited to the Agon Wastes; after that arc of the game, the Pirates largely disappear aside from a handful of Ing hosts.
- The only Space Pirate in Metroid Prime: Hunters is cyborg bounty hunter Weavel, and it's implied he's not even in the Alimbic System on any orders from his higher-ups.
- Metroid: Other M and Metroid Fusion take place after the Pirates were wiped out on Zebes in Super Metroid, and the Pirate enemies we do see in those games (Zebesians, Kihunters, and Ridley) are clones under the control of new antagonists.
- The only Space Pirate in Metroid Dread is Kraid, who is an unwilling prisoner of the Mawkin. There's also an easy-to-miss mural in a Ferenia elevator room showing Zebesians seemingly going up against Chozo soldiers, though why it's there and what it means are left ambiguous.
- Depending on the Artist: Space Pirates tend to look different in every game. The manga depicts them as having numerous subspecies.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: While Metroid and Metroid II: Return of Samus never depicted the Pirates in-game, supplementary material around that time, such as the first game's manual and various comic and manga adaptations, implied that their ranks were mostly made up of evil humans. It wasn't until Super Metroid onward that they were consistently portrayed as a distinct race of Insectoid Aliens who despised humans and any other race outside of their ranks.
- EMP: They have grenades that produce them, though they don't work very well against their sworn enemy, Samus. They probably would work well against Federation troops and installments, though.
- The Empire: Despite being called "pirates", they actually are part of an expansionistic, militaristic, and xenophobic state.
- Eternal Engine: Their homeworld (or at least the part you explore) is like one giant, heavily polluting machine, complete with a perpetual shower of acid rain.
- Elaborate Underground Base: That the Space Pirates specialize in this type of base is the reason why the Federation employed a lone Bounty Hunter to deal with the Metroid threat in the first place. Justified in that the pirates can't match the Federation's armadas, so their bases are designed for concealment and protection from surface attacks.
- Elite Mook: Elite pirates in name, although pirate commandos, dedicated to "hunting the hunter", are more so in practice. They're one of the few enemies on Aether who are just as effective as their dark counterparts, and in fact only hunter ing are allowed to possess them.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Besides Zebesians, they are only referred to as Space Pirates.
- Evil Is Bigger: Their main leaders consistently dwarf Samus despite her being a Statuesque Stunner in Powered Armor, and even the rank-and-file troops such as the Zebesians are One Head Taller than her.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Every attempt of theirs to use the Metroids as bioweapons has backfired spectacularly.
- Evil Knockoff: Their attempts to reverse-engineer Samus's technology. According to logs taken from the original Prime, the pirates did some poking around into the Morph Ball technology, only to have their results break every bone in the test subjects' bodies. Needless to say, that venture took them nowhere and they wisely moved on afterwards.
- Evil Power Vacuum: The Space Pirates cease to be a threat (or as big if there are still active elements out there) after Super Metroid. This results in corrupt elements within the Galactic Federation and Raven Beak gaining power and replacing the pirates as the overarching antagonists of the games set chronologically after their defeat.
- Evil Versus Evil: In Prime 2, they've fought against the Ing, who want their Phazon, as well forcefully recruiting several of their guys into their ranks, as well as Dark Samus, Metroid Prime's revived form via Samus' Phazon Suit taken from her after their first conflict on Tallon IV, while in Metroid Dread, they have fought the Mawkin Chozo Tribe, as observed on a mural on ZDR, though this has yet to be seen ingame.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: The Pirates are aspiring galactic conquerors that seek to assert their superiority over all other sapient species. However, as the Prime Trilogy shows, they are not only incredibly oppressive to each other, incompetence is in abundance throughout their society. While most of the rank-and-file are conditioned for obedience, those that aren't break rules to (sometimes comically) disastrous results. When they aren't stealing tech from the Federation, their Science Team is making all sorts of questionable design choices that cause as much Pirate deaths as Samus does.
- Flanderization: In the first Metroid Prime, the pirate logs depicted them as straight-forward and ruthless Evil Geniuses and Mad Scientists for the most part, with the Morph Ball prototype incident being a rare example of Black Comedy involving them (and after that failed, Science Team decided to move on from it). The pirate logs and logbook entries on pirate tech in the sequels ran with the Morph Ball incident and portrayed the Pirates (especially Science Team) as so comically incompetent, that executions for said incompetence were frequent (such as the engineer that decided that the Aeromines' weapons and shield share the same power source), some of their inventions are blatantly unsafe, and whoever wrote the logs is frequently bad-mouthing them.
- For Science!: A lot of what they do in terms of research is justified like this, in spite of the fact that they violate every rule of safe, ethical research. Of course, at least a few members of the rank and file think that the Science Team has vapor for brains.
- The Ghost: The rank-and-file pirate troops don't appear at all in the first Metroid, with the game's enemies being entirely made up of Metroids and local fauna.
- Giant Mook: Cortesy of the pirates' experiments with phazon, they have three story tall Elite Pirates hanging around in the Phazon mines. Omega Pirate is a Giant Giant Mook. Also Berserker Knights, of which the Berserker Lord is the boss version.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Armored Pirates Troopers and Armoured Militia are extremely well armored to give them a bit more survivability against Samus. Advanced and assault troopers count too.
- Hell Is That Noise: In the Prime games, the presence of Pirates is forewarned by a song that begins slow and ominous, with a heartbeat-like bass. It gives the distinct impression that something is stalking Samus, before the Pirates appear and prove themselves to be some of the most difficult enemies in the game. Following this, the player will learn to fear that music until they've grown powerful enough to be more than a match.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The ultimate goal of the Pirates is to use the Metroids to conquer the universe, and in every single game featuring both, there's at least one Pirate that gets drained by a Metroid:
- In Zero Mission the entire staff of Tourian gets reduced to dry husks by the Metroids kept within, though it's not clear if they lost control of the creatures or if Mother Brain deliberately used her minions as food.
- In Samus Returns Ridley gets drained repeatedly by the Baby Metroid.
- In Super Metroid Mother Brain gets drained almost to death by the Super Metroid.
- In all three games in the Metroid Prime Trilogy Pirates get killed by Tallon Metroids, Dark Tallon Metroids and Phazon Metroids respectively.
- In Other M Ridley's clone is sucked dry by the Queen Metroid
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: The death of Mother Brain and the destruction of planet Zebes brought such a crippling blow to the Space Pirates that even within a few weeks time, they are regarded as a distant memory in the galaxy. In the post-Super Metroid universe, the Space Pirates only appear as either genetically-bred attack dogs or pet prisoners on a leash for new sinister forces.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: In Echoes only, due to being caught in a Mêlée à Trois where the three sides outmatch them to a ridiculous degree, causing them to essentially become irrelevant to the greater conflict.
- Insectoid Aliens: What most Pirate variants look like.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Advanced pirate troopers are resistant to most beams, assault troopers can't be targeted by missiles and only the hyper missiles bother them, the beam troopers are immune to most weaponry besides the beam they are imitating, as well.
- Mecha-Mooks: They have Aeromines, Crawlmines, Crawltanks and various drones to help defend their bases or strike assaults.
- Mook Chivalry: In their logs, science team claims the Elite Pirates' weaknesses do not matter because they will be used in coordination with other soldiers, a clear violation of mook chivalry.
- Mook Mobile: Both their skiffs and their armored tactical carriers function as this, being able to bring their forces to the fight quickly and efficiently.
- Nocturnal Mooks: What the Shadow Pirates are supposed to be, but some are too stupid to stay in the shadows.
- Non-Indicative Name: They are frequently referred to as Zebesians, but Samus is more of a Zebesian than them, having been raised there. These guys are just brigands who set up some laboratories and hidey holes, then started raiding the ruins. Yoshio Sakamoto has compared them to how most "Americans" are actually descended from Europeans.
- Not So Above It All: Despite that they're supposed to be a highly disciplined and regimented army, in the Prime games, scan data reveals that pirates do things like feed metroids pet treats and bad mouth their superiors behind their backs.
- Oh, Crap!: Their reaction to Samus appearing during an operation can be summed up as this. Taken to comedic extremes in Prime 2 when they're already dealing with Dark Samus as Samus herself arrives, with the logs containing the realization of there now being two Samuses running around.
"Another hunter, wearing the traditional colors of Samus Aran, made planetfall today. Horrific as it may sound, there are two of them now."
- Only Sane Man: Pirates who write the logs often comment of how dumb the Science Team and High Command are, believing themselves to be the only ones who saw the dangers ahead.
- Patrolling Mook: Those in Ridley's ship during Zero Mission as well as Chozodia.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: They're really more of The Empire (see above), though the plots of several games are initiated by an act of piracy, in space. The original Metroid and its remake started with an attack on a ship carrying the first Metroids ever discovered by the Federation. Super Metroid started with a pirate attack on the space colony containing the last surviving Metroid. And Metroid Prime 3: Corruption started with the boarding, theft of its main computer, and subsequent scuttling of the Federation ship Valhalla.
- Pet the Dog: Apparently some Space Pirates do keep normal pets, as one scan you can find says that the ones working in the Phazon Mines had to be warned to give them up due to risk of the animals contracting Phazon Madness.
- Power Pincers: They often have chelae on their forearms that house plasma cannons.
- Professor Guinea Pig: The Science team loves using their own members as well as volunteers (or "volunteers," it's never made clear) for experiments.
- The Remnant: The Metroid Prime games retroactively turn the Pirate presence on Zebes in Super Metroid into this. After the massive, massive losses they took against the Galactic Federation Marine Corps in Prime 3 and Federation Force (which includes the capture & occupation of their base world Urtraghus, the death of High Command, multiple naval fleets being destroyed, their HQ in the Bermuda System being bombed to oblivion, and the destruction of the Doomseye superweapon and its Master Brain), it becomes pretty clear that the Zebes cell was the last significant outpost they held.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Elite Pirates in Prime, Pirate Commandos in Prime 2, several troopers in Prime 3.
- Sinister Scythe: Combined with Laser Blade or Hot Blade depending on the game and type of pirate. The Space Pirates in the Metroid Prime games are especially fond of these. In the first game, the blades seem to be made of energy as many of the pirate character models do not include a physical blade, yet they can still slash you with one as their melee attack. In the later games most of the pirates have physical blades, but they glow and leave an energy trail when they attack with them.
- Slave Mooks: Pirate Militia are made up of criminals forced into service and captured slaves. Disobedient militia supposedly become rations for the real troops.
- Space Pirates: What they're called, at least, and they do engage in some piracy, like attacking a space station to get at the last Metroid. However, theat they seem to be organized with a ruling class and dedicated scientists may make the name a bit of a misnomer.
- Spanner in the Works: Stealing Metroids from the Galactic Federation after they caught some from their expedition on SR388 unintentionally delays Raven Beak's plan to weaponize Metroids further, while the Mawkin leader himself was dealing with the X Parasite infestation on ZDR that was infecting his men because of one of their scouts got infected by one after returning from a scouting mission for any Metroids that weren't sealed away.
- Stealthy Mook: Shadow pirates, in dark areas, and the cloaked drone from Metroid Prime.
- Superpowered Mooks: After they discover hypermode, several of them become much more powerful and dangerous when using it.
- Telepathy: In Hunters they intercepted a psychic message. It is currently unknown whether this is due to a telepathic race in their ranks, a machine that can serve this purpose, or individuals who gained this power due to experimentation.
- The Ghost: High Command have never been seen.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- The Space Pirates as a whole don't seem to have much care for personal safety. Their Science Teams seem positively suicidal; but then they have vapor for brains.
- They even have to warn personnel not to use Metroids as target practice.
- Hell, they have to keep reminding personnel not to keep them as pets.
- Uncertain Doom: After the destruction of Zebes in Super Metroid, the Space Pirates have not shown up in games set chronologically afterward except as replicas used by other villains (cloned bio-weapons used by a corrupt splinter group of the Federation Army and later, M.B. in Other M and X Parasite copies in Fusion). It is unclear if their organization was completely destroyed with Zebes, or if they're still active (since they have other bases besides Zebes), but are now just run-of-the-mill brigands with the Metroids (seemingly) extinct and high-ranking leaders such as Ridley and Mother Brain being killed. Kraid's presence in Metroid Dread suggests that there are Space Pirate remnants out there, but otherwise lack presence and, given Samus's unimpressed reaction to Kraid still being alive, they are not in any position to threaten the whole galaxy.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Their presence on Aether at first seems trivial, but then you learn that it was from the pirates that Ing picked up their technology thieving ways. This leads to the Ing possessing every machine on light Aether, nearly destroying the planet with the energy transfer module and stealing most of Samus's power ups!
- Visible Invisibility: Shadow pirates are pretty much invisible by unaided human eyes in the dark; naturally, some will attack in broad daylight, where they are only slightly obscured.
- Wall Crawl: Varies from game to game whether the current crop Samus is up against can do this.
- Weak-Willed: According to the manga, Space Pirates are conditioned to follow a strong leader. Beings with even minor Psychic Powers find it surprisingly easy to take command of them.
- Would Hurt a Child: In the manga, one Pirate slaver was prepared to execute a young human girl just for being too short. Not even the young among their own are safe, as they were willing to infuse Phazon into their own embryos to create Super Soldiers, and the earliest Elite Pirates died before they even reached adulthood.
- You Are Number 6: Scan data in all three Prime games indicates most pirates are referred to by their role and a three digit number.
- You Don't Look Like You: Their design changes significantly across the three
Prime games. This is explained in-universe as a result of genetic self-experimentation.
Pirate Leaders
Mother Brain
Mother Brain
See Mother Brain in her own page Ridley
Ridley
See Ridley in his own page Kraid
"ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!"
(That's probably a greeting.)
(That's probably a greeting.)
Click here to see him in Metroid Dread
Debut: Metroid
"Ah, Ridley's comrade. His skin is on par with an anti-optical shield. Your weapons are useless against him."
—Mother Brain
Voiced by: Doug Parker (Captain N: The Game Master)
The brutal ruler of Brinstar. Along with his co-captain, Ridley, Kraid is a gargantuan mainstay of the Space Pirate forces and one of the guardians of Tourian. Immense and corpulent, his regenerating organic projectile weapons and sheer girth make him a force to be reckoned with. Luckily, from what we've seen of him, he's not too bright.- Achilles' Heel: The wave beam in the first game. Stand on the block in front of him, shoot, dodge occasionally and he goes down.
- Ambiguous Situation: Dread doesn't actually explain the presence of Kraid on ZDR, not even answering if it's the very same Kraid from Metroid and Super Metroid. ZDR does have a lot of Mawkin cloning facilities and the Chozo Archives depicts Chozo soldiers not infected with the X Parasites restraining Kraid, suggesting it could have been a clone or another species member captured before the events of Super Metroid. On one hand, Kraid's reaction towards Samus suggests that he most certainly recognizes her... but on the other hand, it may simply be a Pavlovian response to her wearing Chozo armor, seeing as he has perfectly good reason to hate Chozo warriors at this point.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In Super Metroid, Zero Mission, and Dread, Kraid is an enormous monster who stands many, many times taller than Samus and cannot fit entirely on the screen in Super and Zero Mission, and his Dread version seems even larger. However, in the original NES Metroid, Kraid was much smaller, only somewhat larger than Samus.
- Attack the Mouth: His major weakpoint, though you usually need to shoot him in the face or eyes in order to make him open his mouth to fire down into it.
- Battle Boomerang: He can toss his claws to act in this manner. They grow back almost immediately, making for an irritating projectile.
- Berserk Button: In Metroid Dread, he goes berserk upon seeing Samus and unlike his previous fights, actually lunges at her... only to be held back by his restraints. It is fair to say that after his previous defeats, Kraid really hates Samus. Even if it's uncertain whether he's the original Kraid, a clone, or another member of his species, spending who knows how many years imprisoned and tortured by the Chozo would make him instinctively view anybody wearing Chozo armor, such as Samus, as somebody he utterly despises and wants to kill on principle.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: A giant dinosaur with the standard claws and teeth? Pretty normal as far as video game monsters go. Three eyes? That's only slightly pushing the envelope. Spikes that shoot out of its belly that Samus can jump on? Alright, now that's not exactly normal.
- Body Horror: Dread shows that he has not been treated well in ZDR, being shackled and riddled with scars and rot. His middle stomach hole is infected and is oozing purple pus (which he weaponizes to try and kill Samus with globs of the stuff), and his neck is dangerously swollen from the collar shackling him and Samus shooting missiles into his throat. While unseen in-game, his full model reveals that his lower body is either severely blackened, or even burnt off◊ from the lava he's in. It later gets worse after his remains were assimilated by an X Parasite.
- Book Ends: He appears in the first game of the story arc, and he appears in the final game of said-story arc. To make it more poetic, Kraid can be the first boss faced in the entire series, and he ends up being the Post-Final Boss of Dread, albeit as part of an X Parasite monstrosity fused with Raven Beak.
- The Brute: With Ridley in the first game. Since Super Metroid, he's the only one out of the two to remain this way, while Ridley is further characterized with high intelligence and being the arch-nemesis of Samus.
- The Bus Came Back: After being largely absent from the series since Zero Mission in 2004 (only appearing as a cameo in games outside the series), Kraid returns in Metroid Dread.
- Butt-Monkey: Subtle, but it's there. When he reappears in Metroid Dread after such a long absence, Samus' body language doesn't suggest she actually views him as much of a threat (notably, before she recognizes him, she has her Arm Cannon at the ready and when she does she just lowers it and charges it by her side as Kraid futilely tries to lunge at her), and the way Kraid's eyes narrow indicates he recognizes this too. Even worse, if the player sequence broke to get the Morph Ball bombs before the fight, they can entirely skip Kraid's second phase, Samus going into his stomach to bomb him from the inside out with Kraid helpless to do anything about it.
- Co-Dragons: He's the brawn, Ridley is the brains... and a lot of the firepower as well.
- Color Contrast: Of the green-and-purple kind. Kraid has most commonly been portrayed as green, while Ridley has most commonly been portrayed as purple.
- Colossus Climb: Kraid, although you jump on improvised platforms instead of climbing.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: While the usual method for defeating Kraid isn't exactly pleasant for him (firing missiles into his throat), the hidden method for defeating him in Dread is unusually gruesome and agonizing. If you obtained the Morph Ball bombs early through sequence-breaking, it is possible to defeat Kraid very quickly in the second phase by accessing a Morph Ball launcher that will launch Samus into Kraid's infected stomach spike port like a cannon ball. Said cannon ball then peppers his stomach with a series of explosions. If he didn't die in that boss fight regardless of how he was defeated, then he certainly died a horrible death being assimilated by an X parasite.
- Didn't Think This Through: As soon as he sees Samus in Dread, he begins tugging at his restraints, frantically trying to free himself to attack her. At the end of the boss fight, all his restraints are cut, whereupon he immediately sinks into the lava and dies.
- Disney Villain Death: You never actually see Kraid die in his boss battles. Whenever he's defeated, he simply sinks to the ground with explosions happening around him. Given that he returns in Dread with no explanation to his recovery, it is possible he was never truly killed by Samus to begin with. In fact, the only reason to believe that Kraid is finally dead in Dread is when the X Parasite mutates Raven Beak into a horrific monstrosity that bears resemblance to Kraid, implying that Kraid was assimilated by an X Parasite after his defeat.
- Early-Bird Boss: In Dread, Kraid can be made short work with assuming you have access to Bombs through Sequence Breaking, allowing Samus to beat him in one go in the second phase. Don't have bombs and he becomes a normal, but tough fight as intended. However, it's also possible to stumble into him earlier than planned too, making the fight even tougher since you shouldn't have as many health and missile upgrades as you would like by then.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Kraid was only as tall as Samus in the original Metroid, and he was portrayed with yellow skin, green fur along his back, and only two eyes. Zero Mission retconned this out when it made him match his gigantic Super Metroid design.
- Fat and Skinny: Formed this duo with Ridley in the older games, with Kraid being the "fat" to Ridley's "skinny".
- Fat Bastard: Kraid has a really big gut and given that he's a Space Pirate commander with a similar rank to Ridley, he's not a very pleasant individual.
- Feed It a Bomb: The only way to damage Kraid is to shoot projectiles into his mouth. Unfortunately, Kraid knows this and keeps his mouth shut... unless you force it open by shooting him in the eye.
- Final Boss: In Nintendo Land's theme park version of Metroid, Kraid appears as the boss of mission 25, the last level of Assault Mission. It's a Dual Boss fight against Kraid and Ridley, but while Ridley cannot be defeated and will keep regenerating his armor, Kraid must be defeated to complete the mission.
- Flat Character: Even in supplementary materials, his personality has never extended beyond roaring and fighting, and it doesn't help that he has gone Out of Focus while his partner Ridley continues to grow in prominence. Given his involvements with the Space Pirates and Ridley, however, he may have Hidden Depths.
- Glowing Eyes: His eyes glow in some games such as Metroid Dread and the Super Smash Bros. series.
- Go for the Eye: Shooting at Kraid's third middle eye will cause him to scream in pain, opening his mouth for you to feed him missiles and laser beams down his throat. It's also the only way to harm him...the mouth that is. Shooting his eye bothers him, but does not decrease Kraid's life meter.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: At the end of his boss fight in Dread, Kraid accidentally severs the restraining collar Raven Beak put on him while attempting to strike Samus. Said collar was also responsible for keeping his enormous body from sinking into the pool of lava inside his lair.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: From serving as one of Mother Brain’s top lieutenants alongside Ridley at the beginning of the series, to being locked up and collared as Raven Beak’s pet at the conclusion to the series Myth Arc in Dread.
- Informed Attribute: Anything about his intelligence and personality is never actually seen in the games or manga.
- Irony: Out of the three original bosses in the first Metroid game, Kraid is often overshadowed by his popular peers, with Ridley becoming Samus' iconic Arch-Enemy and Mother Brain defining one of the most iconic Metroid scenes in history. Yet, he ends up outliving both of them and gets his chance to shine by becoming the only returning boss in the story arc's Grand Finale, Metroid Dread.
- Joker Immunity: Not to the same extent as Ridley, but it's there. Kraid has been blown up by Samus twice on Zebes and since Zebes explodes soon afterwards in Super Metroid, one would think that would be the end of Kraid. But no, Kraid returns in Metroid Dread with no apparent explanation as to how he survived (whether it's the original Kraid or a clone of him is not really made clear) or even how he got there aside from it presumably being unwilling given how he's chained down in his boss room. Not that Samus cares that much, as if she has finally come to accept that her old adversaries would return no matter how unlikely their survival was.
- Kaiju: He is one of the largest bosses in Metroid, with his girth taking up two screens and his tail never fully rendered. His dinosaurian appearance and upright position even invokes the look of Godzilla.
- Kevlard: Kraid is very fat, but his only weakpoints are his eyes and mouth. and any other body part of his won't be scratched by any weapon in Samus's arsenal. In Dread, one of his stomach spike orifices can be damaged due to an infection, and a hidden method of killing him (if you got the Morph Ball Bombs early) involves Samus firing herself from a Morph Ball launcher into that infected hole and then bombing his stomach.
- Killed Off for Real: Although Kraid had some degree of Joker Immunity before Dread, he suffers the same fate as Raven Beak when he is absorbed by the X Parasite as the Post-Final Boss, and then Samus obliterates that X Parasite rather than absorbing it.
- Killed Offscreen: While he clearly sinks into the lava of his boss chamber after Samus beats him in his boss fight, it's ambiguous whether he is immune to lava. If he did not suffer A Molten Date with Death, then he was assimilated off-screen by X later on, as shown by Raven Beak X.
- Kill It Through Its Stomach: A variation on the trope that doesn't involve him eating Samus, but rather her entering another orifice of his. A hidden method of defeating him in Dread (if you got the Morph Ball bombs early) involves using a Morph Ball launcher to fire yourself right into his infected stomach spike port and then bombing his stomach from within, instantly ending the fight.
- Large and in Charge: Very large and is (or was) a high ranking Space Pirate in Mother Brain's army.
- A Molten Date with Death: Played with. Kraid sinks into the lava of his boss room after being beaten by Samus in Dread, but considering half of his body was already submerged just fine when the fight started, it's indicated this is more to do with him succumbing to his injuries by Samus than dying from the lava itself. Though none of his stomach holes nor his mouth were submerged in lava, also entertaining the possibility that while his outer skin can sustain lava, his insides can not.
- Monster Threat Expiration: He was the most difficult boss in the first game! Ridley and Mother Brain proceeded to get harder in most of the other titles they appeared in while he became easier in both Super Metroid and the first game's remake.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: His skin is as tough as specialized armor and shielding. All attacks against his body simply bounce off. In Dread, he's fought in the middle of a room where his lower body is submerged in lava and he's unaffected. By comparison, Samus wearing her Varia Suit (by design meant to withstand high temperatures) can only stay in lava for a few seconds.
- Only Friend: To Ridley. He is even described as Ridley's "comrade". The fact that someone like Ridley has any friends makes this an example of Odd Friendship as well.
- Out of Focus: In both the original Metroid and in Super, he and Ridley seemed to form an Evil Duo as being co-captains of the Space Pirates and Co-Dragons to Mother Brain. Afterwards, as Ridley's role in Samus's backstory was elaborated upon and his position as one of the series main villains was cemented, with Mother Brain getting a similar if lesser luxury, Kraid was largely left behind, with a planned appearance as "Meta Kraid" in Prime being scrapped. He wouldn't reappear again until Dread, 17 years after his last appearance in Zero Mission (a remake of the first game).
- Poisonous Person: In Dread, but this isn't a natural power of his. Instead, he's apparently shooting out the infected pus and poison from his middle belly-hole to kill Samus.
- Post-Final Boss: In Dread, after the X parasite infects Raven Beak it combines the DNA of him and Kraid to becomes a monstrosity making Kraid part of the final opponent Samus must face, but at this point she has reached her full Metroid potential and makes quick work of it with one huge laser-blast.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes are usually glowing red.
- Red Baron: His moniker, according to the Zero Mission website, is "Awakened Behemoth." Not as colorful as Ridley's, but it gets the point across.
- Sole Survivor: Appears to be the last Space Pirate commander (and last Space Pirate period) alive by the time of Dread, as Mother Brain and Ridley are both long gone. After his defeat by Samus yet again, he is implied to be eaten by the X Parasite that would later absorb Raven Beak to form a mishmash monstrosity. Said monstrosity ends up being vaporized by Samus' Hyper Beam and ZDR explodes shortly afterwards, meaning Kraid will be joining Ridley and Mother Brain in the permanent afterlife.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Noticeably, for his boss fight in Dread he's chained by his wrists and neck down in his boss room, indicating he's not exactly here by his own free will. The Chozo Archives confirm that he was forcibly restrained by the Mawkin Chozo Soldiers.
- Spike Shooter: In each of his appearances, he fires spikes from his belly.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: He would be invincible if he never opened his mouth or shot spikes out of his belly. Granted, you have to make Kraid open his mouth by shooting him the eye, so really he should have stopped shooting spikes after destroying the platform Samus was using to get an easier shot at his head.
- Taught by Experience: Considering his first action upon seeing Samus is to lunge at her — and later tries to step on her — before being held back by his restraints, it's safe to say that by Metroid Dread, Kraid is taking no chances to kill his long time adversary. Either that, or he has learned not to underestimate anyone wearing Chozo battle armor.
- Third Eye: Shoot it to get him to open his mouth!
- Took a Level in Badass:
- By contrast, if one goes from Metroid Zero Mission to Super Metroid and ignores the original game, then Kraid becomes more difficult, particularly due to his use of Boomerang Comeback.
- Though Samus doesn't consider him to be a threat and the mighty Space Pirate is reduced to a mere prisoner on ZDR, Kraid is far more aggressive and difficult to fight in Dread than he was in the past, especially since he can launch spikes, claws, several ball projectiles, fire balls, and a disgusting pink goo from his middle stomach hole pus. And unlike his previous battles, he will actually use his arms to punch Samus when she's clinging on a spider magnet wall at eye level.
- Trick Boss: His infamous Super Metroid boss fight, where he pits a smaller version of himself against Samus before confronting her himself.
- Unexplained Recovery: Like Ridley and Mother Brain, Kraid was blown apart by Samus in Metroid/Zero Mission, yet returns fine and dandy in Super Metroid and later again in Dread. Concept art revealed that he was originally going to appear in Prime with cybernetic enhancements similar to Meta Ridley, thus justifying his eventual recovery, but Kraid was cut from the final game.
Phantoon
Unknowable. Unkillable.
Debut: Super Metroid
An ethereal, supernatural, genderless specter that is both intangible and / or invulnerable to any form of attack, except for its single nebulous eye. It is this eye that, when opened, serves as its connection to the material world and can be torn asunder. It feeds on negative emotions and is drawn to the desolate, derelict wrecks of space-vessels; gorging itself on pain, fear and misery to create spirit thralls known as Coverns. From its dwelling in the Wrecked Ship on Zebes, it was appointed as a Space Pirate commander and one of the guardians of Tourian. Some suspect it to be merely part of a malevolent entity from the different dimension; others, the psychic harmonics of Mother Brain given manifestation once more. Whatever the case: it haunts Samus Aran like a ghost and will never give up its vendetta."The cold silence serves to punctuate the feeling of death that emanates from this virtually lifeless place... Only one thing is alive and well here... Evil."
—Samus Aran
- Ambiguous Gender: As Phantoon has only been referred to as an "it", it is unknown if it has a gender at all.
- Ambiguous Situation: It is apparently assigned a role as one of Tourian's guardians alongside Space Pirate mainstays, Kraid and Ridley. However, given its supernatural origins (and that Mother Brain psychically enthralled it, whether through mind control or Phantoon feeding off her energy), we have no idea if Phantoon officially has any meaningful position within the Space Pirate hierarchy (or if it has any other connections to the Space Pirates at all).
- Astral Projection: It apparently possesses an astral form.
- Berserk Button: In Super, if you hit it with a super missile, it goes apeshit and bombards you with a fireball attack that's very difficult to dodge.
- Bullet Hell: Phantoon does this using its fire orbs, especially in Super Metroid if you try to hit it with super missiles. In Other M, they home in on Samus, forcing her to use the Sense Move almost every second.
- The Bus Came Back: Other M gives it a return appearance for the first time since Super, sixteen years and seven games earlier.
- Create Your Own Hero: If Phantoon was responsible for marooning the Chozo on Zebes, it not only led the Chozo to set up their own settlement on the planet, but the same Chozo colony raised Samus Aran to be the bane of Space Pirates, and Phantoon by extension once it was involved with the Pirates.
- Cyclops: It has one giant eyeball.
- Death or Glory Attack: Invoked in Super Metroid; using Super Missiles kills it drastically quicker than using ordinary missiles. But, every time you hit it with a Super Missile, its Bullet Hell attack patterns get faster and faster, so you may find yourself killed more readily than you would if you took the slower path and used ordinary missiles.
- Disney Death: Perhaps unintentionally set up in Super Metroid, it returns in Other M as the True Final Boss.
- Dynamic Difficulty: In Super Metroid, the difficulty of the boss fight is scaled based on the player's actions. If the player hits Phantoon with a Super Missile to deal more damage, it will go into an enraged state and start using much more difficult attack patterns. If the player uses only weaker regular missiles on it, then Phantoon sticks with its easier attack pattern.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: Inverted. Phantoon, along with the entire Playable Epilogue, is missing in Hard Mode.
- Eldritch Abomination: The biggest in Metroid's lore... So far... It exists on multiple planes of reality at once and what Samus has fought so far is only its head.
- Emotion Eater: It feeds off negative emotions to increase its own power.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: It has a single eye contained inside of its mouth. If the Rage Hands are part of its body, it also has eyes in its palms.
- Eyeless Face: It looks sort of like a disembodied head mixed with a jellyfish, but it's got a blank space where its eyes should be.
- Flying Face: According to Other M's concept art, the part of Phantoon that you fight as boss is actually one of these, and the rest of its body is concealed on multiple planes of reality. In its boss fight in Other M, it also summons multiple disembodied hands.
- Glass Cannon: It hits hard, but all it needs is five Super Missiles in the eye. Even then, choosing to use Super Missiles on it will provoke it into unleashing its deadlier and harder-to-dodge attacks.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Its appearance in Other M. Since it shows up after the credits with no context, it is unknown if Phantoon was another of the Federation conspiracy's bio-weapons or if this was the original Phantoon and it simply took over what was left after the Bottle Ship operation was shut down (during the Boss Rush leading up to it, left-over bio-weapons can be seen coming out of portals similar to the ones the Rage Hands come out of).
- Go for the Eye: It has one giant eye in the middle of its jaws. Guess where its only weakness is?
- King Mook: It can be viewed as one for the Coverns in Super Metroid, especially since it created them.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Inverted with the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid. Phantoon's defeat drives away the Coverns and restores power to the ship, with the other robots reactivating and other living creatures starting to move in. Subverted in Other M from a gameplay standpoint, as while the Bottle Ship's self-destruct sequence happens after Phantoon's defeat, there's no indication that Phantoon was responsible for it and it only starts after Samus retrieves Adam's helmet, as the ship was scheduled by the Galactic Federation to be destroyed anyway.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Phantoon's backstory has changed drastically over the years. In Super Metroid's manuals, it was described as either being the ghost of the Wrecked Ship that tapped into Mother Brain's brainwaves and became loyal to her (in the English manual), or a physical manifestation of Mother Brain's malevolence (in the Japanese manual). Another backstory revealed in Other M's concept art, suggests it to be a multi-dimensional entity that hitched a ride on (and eventually sabotaged) the Chozo vessel that ultimately became the Wrecked Ship.
- Necromancer: The Covernsnote aboard the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid? Its doing. They used to be the ship's crew. However, it's possible some of them may also be from explorers killed after the crash and Pirates from the Mother Ship in Zero Mission given its proximity to part of the ship prior to its destruction.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: It exists as both a multidimensional corporeal form and an astral form. And while it can be driven away, it'll always come back. The Coverns, on the other hand, are explicitly ghosts comprised of multiple souls.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: In Super, if Phantoon just kept its eye shut it would remain intangible while dropping random fire orbs. It might take a long time, but Samus would go down eventually.
- Technicolor Fire: Phantoon uses ghostly blue orbs of flame that rather resemble Hitodama Light.
- Tentacled Terror: A cephalopod-like monster that has (at least) two tentacles.
- Took a Level in Badass: In Other M, it is huge and is given a promotion to True Final Boss status.
- True Final Boss: In Other M, Phantoon appears in the epilogue as a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere that's detached from the main storyline and is much more challenging than the actual Final Boss, MB. However, if you play on Hard, you can't access the post-game and, consequently, Phantoon.
- Uncertain Doom: It isn't quite clear if Phantoon was killed in any of its battles with Samus (or if it can be killed at all) given its otherworldly nature and its defeat animations.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Or where was the mouse during Zero Mission? A piece of the Wrecked Ship can be traveled through as a gateway between Chozodia and Crateria (and right near the Pirate Mother Ship's landing site). However, it doesn't seem to be haunted by Phantoon or Coverns, is fully powered and inhabited by Zebesian fauna, despite the implications of Phantoon's connections to the ship.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: What we see is only a fragment of the true being.
Draygon
Watch where you wander...
Debut: Super Metroid
A giant Evir that dwells in the watery caverns of Maridia, Draygon was appointed as a Space Pirate General capable of guarding Tourian to the same extent as its fellow captains, Ridley and Kraid when the Pirates rebuilt their base on Zebes. Possesses semi-sentience and full asexual reproduction for future generations."To think I called this place home once, in peaceful times, long before monsters moved in the caverns below..."
—Samus Aran
- Achilles' Heel: Electricity. Consider that it must be filtering water through its shell, gills and body to move so quickly while submerged and its death becomes even more horrific.
- Ambiguous Gender: Manuals refer to Draygon with gender-neutral pronouns and the Super Metroid Players' Guide outright uses male pronouns, but Draygon's behavior and status as a maternal figure for Evirs lead some fans to refer to it as female.
- Ambiguous Situation: It is apparently assigned a role as one of Tourian's guardians alongside Space Pirate mainstays, Kraid and Ridley. However, since all we know about it is that it is apparently an Evir brood mother, Draygon's official position in the Space Pirate hierarchy as well as the Evirs' connections to the Pirates in general are unknown.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Samus must burst Draygon's soft under-belly with either a barrage of missiles or by hooking into the electric circuit.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: It can do massive damage with its tail if it manages to grab Samus with its creepy claws. That said, this trope is Played With in that Draygon doesn't so much have a stinger as it's simply slapping Samus with it really, really hard.
- Body Horror: It's a giant hybrid of fish and crustacean, with a pustulant bloated underbelly hanging out from its underside. Also, both of its death animations involve bursting its stomach.
- Death or Glory Attack: Invoked; the secret method of defeating Draygon involves using a missile to blast off one of the devices on the upper walls of the arena, exposing a live circuit, and then letting Draygon catch Samus before using the Grapple Beam to grab the exposed circuit and electrocute them both. The maneuver deals a bit of damage to Samus but kills Draygon instantly and is much easier than shooting it down with missiles.
- King Mook: It can be considered one for the Evirs.
- Lamprey Mouth: Its circular mouth and teeth are line up this way.
- Mama Bear: To its Evir twin-breed offspring. Samus getting near them is Draygon's cue to attack.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In a gaping circular orifice just to increase the squick factor.
- Nightmare Face: It's bad enough that Draygon has a nasty leech-like sucker mouth with white, mad glassy eyes that make a Great White's look like a puppy's, but if you look closely at its head-armor, it's shaped to make it appear covered in screaming, twisted skulls, looking almost like Phantoon's Coverns.
- Out of Focus: Out of all the Space Pirate bosses that were Tourian's guardians, Draygon is so far the only one to have appeared just once in the series, save for being a placeholder image for a scan in the demo for Metroid Prime.
- Sea Monster: An animalistic, gluttonous leviathan that shrieks like Anguirus from Godzilla.
- Starfish Alien: Draygon is an Evir King Mook who was appointed to a major position as one of Tourian's guardians alongside long-time Space Pirate commanders, Kraid and Ridley, and the mysterious Eldritch Abomination, Phantoon. Therefore, it would seem that Draygon and the Evir species are sapient despite appearing to be giant, water-dwelling, non-humanoid crustaceans. Like the Kihunters, the Evirs may be another race of pirates and not a species native to Zebes.
Pirate Commander
Debut: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
A high ranking pirate who commanded the forces on Urtraghus. After its troops and Gandrayda failed to eliminate Samus it took to the battlefield in an attempt to do the job itself."A rare breed, Pirate Commanders have lived to rise to the ruling caste on the Pirate Homeworld. Each has been a commando for at least ten years."
—Scan Lore
- Ambiguous Gender: No mention is ever made of its gender. Given the mystery surrounding Pirate culture, it's just as likely to be female as it is male.
- Arm Cannon: As is standard for pirate warriors.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Scan data mentions that being promoted to commander means serving at least ten years as a commando.
- Authority Grants Asskicking: Just as deadly as commando pirates were when you first encountered them, plus a few extra tricks.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: It has Phazite blades for close combat.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: A squad of commandos accompanies the commander.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: As with all the pirates on Urtraghus, it's under the sway of Dark Samus.
- Early-Bird Cameo: During the assault on Urtraghus, you can see it kill a couple of troopers if you wait long enough. Well, presumably it's the same commander.
- Flunky Boss: Fights alongside a squad of commando pirates.
- Frontline General: When the commandos, metroids, and mooks fail to get the job done, the commander goes after Samus personally.
- Invisibility Cloak: Like the commandos, it has a cloaking device.
- Killed Off for Real: Killed permanently by Samus, naturally.
- King Mook: Essentially an upgraded commando.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: Its Phazite armor is red compared to the blue of normal commandos, and is far more durable as well as lacking the Nova Beam weakness.
- Lightning Bruiser: It hits hard, has extra tough armor, and the cloaking and teleporting make it hard to pin down.
- No-Sell: By the time you encounter it, you've probably learned how to use the Nova Beam and X-Ray visor to target commando pirate's internal organs through their armor. Too bad the Commander gets the fancy red Phazite armor that makes that tactic useless.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The red Phazite armor gives it this appearance.
- Teleportation: Utilizes a personal teleporter to maneuver around foes and retreat if necessary.
- There Is Another: Commander is a rank, you can bet there are others.
Science Team
Debut: Metroid Prime (Mentioned only)
The enigmatic and amoral group responsible for the advancement of Space Pirate technology in their conquest of the universe."Science Team believes the Metroids can be trained. After several cycles of trying, I believe Science Team has vapor for brains. I've lost two assistants to the wretched little things."
— Scan Lore
- Bio-Augmentation: Their most common methods of improving their underlings.
- Creative Sterility: Played with. While they steal and reverse engineer a great deal of technology, they also create a good portion of it themselves.
- The Creon: With the intertwined nature of the high command and science team, not to mention how often Samus kills off high ranking pirates, it would be fairly easy for them to seize power. Instead they go to great lengths to keep the current leadership alive, sometimes even creating entirely new beings like Master Brain solely to give them the responsibility of leadership.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The most well known statement regarding them is an insult to their intelligence, but there's a reason the pirates have been able to hold their own against the numerically superior Federation for so long.
- Determinator: If absolutely nothing else, "defeat" doesn't seem to be in their vocabulary. It doesn't matter how many times their experiments die on them, proceed to kill copious amounts of Pirates before being put down or subdued, or get blown to hell by Samus. Science Team will just brush it off and either try again or move on to a similar project without batting an eye.
- Evil Genius: They created all the tech the pirates use that they didn't steal. Everything in the Creations section of this page exists thanks to them.
- Evilutionary Biologist: They work with living creatures just as much as machines, and it doesn't matter how many times their failures die or go insane in the pursuit of perfecting their bioweapons.
- For Science!: They experiment for the sake of it, even when it isn't at all practical. In Prime alone, they decided to test the newly-discovered Phazon (which they learned very quickly would kill, mutate, and drive insane anything that comes into contact with it) on tiny parasites (creating the Parasite Queens), inanimate rock and ice (creating Thardus), Metroids (creating the Tallon, Hunter, and Fission Metroids), and even themselves (creating the Elite Pirates, the Phazon Elite, and the Omega Pirate), all heedless of anyone or everyone who ends up dead because Phazon exposure during testing or being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the insane experiments break loose and start killing anything within reach.
- The Ghost: While their lackeys have been encountered, Science Team itself has never been seen in any medium.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Every time the pirates appear, with the exception of Corruption, they're doing something to further one of Science Team's projects. And even in Corruption, when the pirates were all mind controlled, they still made heavy use of their tech like hypermode and phazite armor.
- I Want Them Alive!: Downplayed in regards to Samus Aran. Scanning reports in Prime make it clear that while the orders are out to subjugate or terminate her, they would much prefer her dead; however, they want her dead in such a way her body or at least her Powered Armor is left intact for study and reverse-engineering.
- Just Think of the Potential!:
- What their obsession with Metroids and controlling them often tends to boil down to. So what if they keep sucking the lifeforce out of all our guys, just imagine how deadly they'll be to our enemies when we finally get them under control!
- How they justify all of their experiments with Phazon in the Prime Trilogy. Sure, the subjects keep dying or going insane, but look at all the amazing mutations they get and how much damage they can do even like that! Just imagine how deadly they would be if we can cultivate those "useful" mutations for combat and keep them obedient and (semi-)controllable? At least until Corruption, when Dark Samus's mental control turns it more towards a religious zeal.
- No OSHA Compliance: The experiments they embark on and some of the engineering decisions they make have zero regard for the well-being of their underlings. They can range from dangerous but successful at best (Phazon experiments) to criminally incompetent at worst (such as their attempt to replicate Samus's Morph Ball).
- Smug Snake: The logs in Prime indicate a big reason they're so eager to get into the Impact Crater isn't just to get at the large Phazon supply, but also capture and control the massive lifeform (aka Metroid Prime) they've detected inside. Look no further than the events of Echoes (where Metroid Prime now as Dark Samus is raiding Pirate bases for their Phazon) and Corruption (where Dark Samus flat-out takes control of the Pirates, including Science Team, herself) to see how likely they would have pulled that off.
- Tested on Humans: Probably not actually humans, but they have a habit of using sentient beings as test subjects, usually their own species.
- We Have Reserves: They are extremely callous about the loss of life incurred in their experiments. As far as they're concerned, results are the only thing that matter, and they'll happily spend or waste as many beings as possible to get them.
Specific Pirates
Mini-Kraid
Debut: Metroid
- Adapted Out: Despite being a notorious element of the original Metroid, Mini-Kraid is the only enemy that does not return in the remake Metroid: Zero Mission.
- Ambiguous Situation: What is Mini-Kraid? Is he another member of Kraid's species? Is he a clone? Is he a robot decoy? It seems there will never be an answer to these questions.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: A dinosaur with the standard claws and teeth? Pretty normal as far as video game monsters go. Three eyes? That's only slightly pushing the envelope. Spikes that shoot out of its belly? Alright, now that's not exactly normal.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Much like the real Kraid, Mini-Kraid was portrayed with blue fur on his back and only two eyes in his debut the original Metroid. His appearance in Super Metroid is likewise updated to match Kraid's iconic redesign.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: Although Mini-Kraid looks and behaves much like the real Kraid, he dies in one missile and doesn't open the way to Tourian. In Super Metroid, he's a bit stronger and is even fought in a room looking much like Kraid's original room, but this was to add dramatic effect once the player entered the next room and saw just how gigantic the real deal was.
- Fat Bastard: Mini-Kraid has a really big gut and given that he's a Space Pirate, he's not a very pleasant individual.
- Informed Attribute: Interestingly, a 1991 Nintendo Power article refers to the fake Kraid as a "midget monster imposter", even though he is the same height as Kraid in the original Metroid. This seemingly prophesized Mini-Kraid's much smaller appearance (or rather, the real Kraid's much larger appearance) a few years later in Super Metroid.
- Mini-Me: He's this to the enormous Kraid, and he's still almost twice as big as Samus.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes are red in Super Metroid.
- Spike Shooter: In both of his appearances, he fires spikes from his belly.
- Third Eye: As part of his updated design in Super Metroid, Mini-Kraid has a third eye in the middle of his forehead.
- Took a Level in Badass: A very minor case in Super Metroid. While he is still much weaker than the real Kraid, Mini-Kraid is more resilient and takes a few missiles to kill.
- Trick Boss: Infamously, Mini-Kraid's role is to trick players into thinking they're fighting the real Kraid. In Metroid, they're located in separate parts of the maze-like Mini-Boss Lair, but in Super Metroid, Mini-Kraid is fought shortly before engaging the real Kraid a few rooms later.
- Unexplained Recovery: No matter how many times Samus guns down Mini-Kraid, he respawns once she leaves the room. This suggests that Mini-Kraid is less likely a single character and more likely a group of Space Pirates of the same species as Kraid.
Weavel
An elite pirate warrior nearly killed by Samus and rebuilt as a cyborg. His tropes can be found here.
Pirate Hussar
Debut: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Unusually brave Space Pirates who ride ferocious Korakk beasts. One is encountered on Bryyo.
- Attack Its Weakpoint: The entire hussar counts since you can shoot them dead without beating the beast. For the Korakk, shoot the mouth to stun it, lay bombs under it to topple it, then grapple the tail to pull it upright, then shoot the weak point on its belly.
- The Beastmaster: Hussars must tame the Korakk beasts to ensure their loyalty.
- Beast of Battle: The Korakk beast.
- Jousting Lance: The hussar wields a Phazon energy lance.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The hussar's armor.
- Synchronization: Killing the beast will kill the hussar, though the beast can survive the death of its rider.
- Villainous Friendship: Its implied the hussars have genuine affection for their mounts.
- Undying Loyalty: The beast will fight on even if you kill the rider in an attempt to avenge their death.
King Kihunter
Debut: Metroid: Other M
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The boss fight consists of shooting the plants that grow on the hive's supports, shattering them and exposing the king.
- Eyeless Face: It has a mouth, but no visible eyes. Considering it's fused to the interior of its hive, it's doubtful it would really have much to look at anyways.
- Insect Queen: Gender-Inverted Trope. He's the ruler of a hive of giant alien wasps. This is a stark contrast to real life hive insects, which are always matriarchal.
- Flunky Boss: The fight is primarily dealing with the constantly spawning kihunters long enough to shoot at the actual objectives.
- King Mook: Averted, despite the name. He's much different than normal kihunters.
- Meat Moss: A large section of the hive wall is part of its flesh.
- Mother of a Thousand Young: Father actually. It's to be expected when you're talking about the head of an insect hive, though it raises some questions about how the heck that system evolved.
- Stationary Boss: He's completely stationary for the whole fight, as his abdomen is actually fused with the hive.
Pirate Subgroups
Zebesians
Debut: Super Metroid
- Ambiguously Related: The design of the ancient Chozo armor that Gray Voice wears while attempting to kill Mother Brain in the manga has a very similar design to the Zebesians, specifically their Bird People redesign in Fusion. The connection is never stated in the manga, leaving open the question of whether or not the Zebesian space pirates and Chozo might actually be related.
- Bird People: Fusion had them redesigned to have more bird-like features, such as the beak and feathers. It's implied in the manga and Other M that this is their true appearance and the classical insectoid appearance is just their body armor.
- Cyborg: They are often augmented with environmental survival systems and weapons.
- Depending on the Writer: Are they so dependent on Mother Brain's mind control that if she dies, they'll go feral and collapse as an organization? Or can they operate on their own even if Mother Brain isn't around? Each game gives a different interpretation. Later material such as Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U attempt to reconcile this by saying that the clones made by the Federation in Metroid: Other M were unintelligent lab specimens unlike the regular Zebesians.
- Elite Mook:
- Super Zebesians, which are more durable and more dangerous than the standard version.
- The two Zebesians that guard Ridley's lair. They are more acrobatic than regular Zebesians, and can only be harmed when they change color in mid-air.
- Energy Weapon: Their standard armament, launched from their pincers. In Super Metroid they also have Eye Beams, which results in roughly the same spread as the spazer, but all games released since limit it to the pincers.
- Insectoid Aliens: Their exoskeleton and pincers make them appear as humanoid arthropods, although they are more like a cross between a bug and a bird underneath that armor.
- Mascot Mook: They are the de facto Space Pirate troopers. In official artworks of the Metroid franchise, the Space Pirate forces are almost always depicted to be Zebesians.
- Meaningful Rename: They took the moniker Zebesians after conquering the planet.
- Mooks: Out of all Space Pirate troopers, they are most prominent and iconic species.
- No Name Given: We still don't know the real name of the species.
- Non-Indicative Name: Despite their name, they aren't native to Zebes. Yoshio Sakamoto has compared to this to how most Americans are actually descendants of European colonists, who took up the name after conquering the natives' land.
- Power Pincers: Usually with built-in energy weapons.
- Servant Race: According to the trophy in Super Smash Bros 4, the Zebesians cloned by the Federation have had the ability to act independently removed to make them better pawns for the Federation.
- Space Jews:
Word of God says that them being called Zebesians despite not originating on the planet Zebes is a reference to European colonists being called American. - Wall Crawl: They can crawl on the walls like insects, though they don't utilize this ability very often.
- Weak-Willed: Every time they're encountered, they're being controlled by a higher intelligence. The Federation's clone Zebesians aren't even a threat to galactic civilization when not controlled by a leader.
- You Shall Not Pass!: In Zero Mission, a lone Zebesian tries to do this when Samus is escaping the Space Pirate Mothership with a stolen Pirate fighter craft. It goes as well as you would expect.
Kihunters
Debut: Super Metroid
Why did it have to be bugs?
An insectoid race of Space Pirates, they hail from another galactic system and helped rebuild the Pirates' operations on Zebes.- Acid Attack: The Kihunters spit acid as a projectile attack.
- Airborne Mook: Their wings can be shot off, but they are still dangerous when grounded.
- Bee People: Exactly how their social structure runs is not clear but they are bee-like and they have a "king".
- Beware My Stinger Tail: They have stingers on their ovipositors, but they also have claws too.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Potentially, the Kihunters' status as sapient Space Pirates. While it's never been explicitly retconned by later games, it was only mentioned in the manual of their debut game, Super Metroid. While Kihunters and Zebesians have both appeared together in later titles such as Fusion and Other M, the presence of Zebesians aboard the BSL Station and BOTTLE SHIP is treated as an alarming developmentnote while Kihunters are treated with as little fanfare as any other feral Zebes lifeforms. Later games also tend to portray the Space Pirates as a single species instead of a faction of multiple species, which would have been defied by Kihunters being a separate species under the Space Pirates' banner.
- Elite Mooks: Other M introduces Super Kihunters, which are a more powerful variant of Kihunters.
- Eyeless Face: Their Zero larval stage is eyeless, until Other M depicts them with eyes.
- Insectoid Aliens: Compared to other Space Pirates, Kihunters are the most explicitly insectoid and resemble giant wasps.
- Metamorphosis Monster: The caterpillar-like Zeros are revealed in Fusion to be their larval form. It's significant to that game because, after defeating Zazabi, the Zeroes freeze in their typical spots and form cocoons, blocking off certain passageways until they emerge as Kihunters right before the second visit to Sector 2.
- Natural Weapon: The main difference between them and the other Pirate footsoldiers is that they never seem to brandish any weapons besides those they were born with.
- Personal Space Invader: Super Kihunters latch on to enemies as a matter of course but thankfully do not explode.
- Spell My Name with an S:
- In the Super Metroid manual, their name is written as "Keyhunters". In the Japanese Other M guidebook, it's written as "Ke-Hunter". Otherwise, it's consistently spelled as "Kihunter".
- The larval form, Zero, is called "Zoro" in one Super Metroid guidebook and the Japanese Other M guidebook. It is a closer romanization of their Japanese name, but "Zero" is the more common name.
- Super Spit: The gunk they spit after losing their wings. In Other M they don't even wait that long, spitting projectiles as soon as they see Samus.
- Taking You with Me: In Other M, they try to latch onto Samus and explode if they take heavy damage.
- Third Eye: A large one in the center of their head.
- Wall Crawl: Zeros, their larval stage, are capable of crawling on walls and ceilings.
Tallon IV Pirates
Debut: Metroid Prime
- Airborne Mook: The Flying Pirates use jetpacks to fly.
- Aquatic Mook: Aqua Pirates. They're the same as a Flying Pirate except their jetpacks are modified to move underwater.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: All of them except Flying Pirates have energy scythes mounted on their forearms, or replacing their hands in the case of Trooper Pirates.
- Body Horror: Most of the pirates on the Frigate Orpheon have clearly seen better days, to the point you can count the number of uninjured ones on one hand. Scanning several bodies show that the Parasite Queens and their brood either directly or indirectly killed or maimed them through such ways as crushing body parts, ripping off limbs, smothering in acid, and eating their internal organs.
- Ceiling Cling: How the Shadow Pirates like to get the drop on Samus. In the Phazon Mines, beam and normal troopers will hide in ceiling compartments to mimic this.
- Combat Pragmatist: They completely avoid Mook Chivalry and attack Samus in areas where she's at a disadvantage.
- Cyborg: They have a number of mechanical components grafted into their bodies, including the presence of a prosthetic spinal column.
- Energy Weapon: All pirates, save the Shadow Pirates, have these.
- Glowing Eyes: They have flaming orange eyes.
- Invisibility: The Shadow Pirates use this and Wall Crawl to get the drop on Samus.
- Laser Blade: Of varying colors depending on their role. Orange for normal Space Pirates, blue for Shadow Pirates, and the same color as their beam type for Trooper Pirates.
- Lizard Folk: They're very reptilian in design, especially compared to the more crustacean and insectoid pirates of other Metroid games.
- Mecha-Mooks: More for patrolling than serious combat.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- Their ruined ship broadcast an open distress signal, allowing Samus to discover and destroy their operations on Tallon IV.
- If they hadn't drawn the attention of Samus (and thus the Federation) to Phazon, Phaaze may never have been discovered and destroyed.
- No-Sell: The various Trooper Pirates each have complete immunity to everything but one of the beams and its charge combo.
- Sinister Scythe: Their melee weapons are called energy scythes, though the name isn't indicative of their actual design.
- Taking You with Me: Flying and Aqua Pirates will attempt to crash into Samus when they're defeated.
- Takes One to Kill One: Trooper Pirates are weak to whatever beam they use, which is explained In-Universe as a flaw in their weaponry giving them a vulnerability.
- Tron Lines: On the armor of the Trooper Pirates, with the color corresponding to their beam type.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Hardly unwitting, but their actions began the Phazon Conflict. Their creation of the Omega Pirate also indirectly created Dark Samus, which nearly led to the annihilation of the Federation and the subjugation of the Pirates.
- Wall Crawl: In the Omega Pirate fight, sometime the Trooper Pirates will cling to the walls and fire down at Samus.
Aether Pirates
Debut: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- Arm Cannon: All of the pirates seen have one of their arms replaced with some sort of projectile weapon.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: The normal troopers and grenadiers have their other hand replaced by a blade, while commandos have a Laser Blade projected from their weapons.
- The Bus Came Back: Where the Tallon IV and Urtraghus pirates were never seen after the games they initially appeared in, the Aether pirate species returns in Federation Force.
- Butt-Monkey: They get torn apart between the Ing, Dark Samus, and original flavor Samus.
- EMP: The pirate commandos have emp grenades that scramble Samus's visor and break target locks.
- Enemy Mine: One of the Pirate Log scans muses if they could possibly form this with Dark Samus upon observing her attack Samus, specifically convincing Dark Samus to terminate the Hunter in exchange for Phazon. Given how we later witness Dark Samus murder a bunch of Pirates for their Phazon, it's unlikely she would be willing to talk terms.
- Flash Step: The pirate commandos use their thrusters to dart around in combat.
- Light Is Not Good: The pirate commandos wear white armor.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Commandos have an energy shield that deflects all attacks, though they can't attack either while they're using it.
- Mook Carryover: Many of them are possessed by Ing and used as their mooks.
- Out of Focus: They control only a small portion of the map, with the Ing serving as the primary antagonists.
- Ramming Always Works: Grenadiers will shoulder check Samus if she gets too close for them to use their grenade launcher. It actually does to, as the knockback from the attack will force her far enough away that they won't catch themselves in the blast radius.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They bear a distinct resemblance to the Zebesian pirates.
- Villain Teleportation: They teleport their troops into combat.
Urtraghus Pirates
Debut: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- All There in the Manual: You'd wouldn't know their homeworld is called Urtraghus just by playing the game.
- Arm Cannon: Like the Tallon pirates, one that leaves their hands free.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Retractable ones on their forearm.
- Body Horror: A common occurrence with all Pirate variants, but the Corruption Pirates exhibit this to the greatest extent. Many of the militia units seem to have had their limbs replaced with spindly cybernetic appendages, their remaining flesh is made up of exposed skinless muscle, and that's not even getting into the various results of Phazon corruption.
- Maybe justified by the fact that they don't have actual bodies. Their heads are completely different material from their bodies, plus scan logs seem to indicate their heads are separate organisms. It seems they are just heads in biomech frames (more like eels).
- Boom, Headshot!: Once you acquire the Nova Beam and X-Ray Visor, you can target pirate commando's brains through their armor.
- Elite Mook: There are several varieties on the standard mook, each with a certain advantage. Later in the game you encounter enemies that have two or more of these advantages.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Pirates who fail too often, or militia who fail at all, are rumored to become rations for High Command.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Some pirates carry Phazon grenades that forces Samus into Hypermode. You know, Hypermode, that thing that makes her invincible and deal a crapload more damage than normal. In their defense, Phazon is pretty much guaranteed lethality against any normal lifeform, but you'd think they would learn after the first time.
- Hot Blade: Their melee weapons, halfway between the energy blades of the Tallon IV pirates and the solid blades of the Aether pirates.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Many pirates carry energy shields, which block all projectiles and must be ripped away with the grapple lasso.
- Mecha-Mooks: To a much greater extent than any other pirate group.
- No-Sell: Armored Pirates are immune to all beam attacks until you shatter their armor with missiles.
- Organic Technology: A number of their machines, such as their boarding pods, Jolly Roger Drones, and "Remorse"-Class Turrets look strangely organic in nature.
- Pet the Dog: The militia pirates can be promoted from their Slave Mook status through service.
- Praetorian Guard: A squad of commandos guards the Commander.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: All structures on the Pirate Homeworld follow this colour scheme, and so do the Pirates themselves. Their blue Phazon veins and various armours disguise this fact, but viewing their models in the Logbook makes it apparent.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Some carry shields that can block all attacks until you rip it away from them.
- Slave Mook: The militia pirates, who are much weaker than all other pirate types.
- Super Mode: Just like Samus, they can utilize Hypermode. Whether they came up with it first or the Federation did is unknown.
- Villain Teleportation: The commandos use personal teleporters to outmaneuver Samus.
Bermuda System Pirates
- Angry Guard Dog: They keep zuruburats for the same purpose.
- Arm Cannon: Depending on the type, either one mounted on their forearm or replacing it.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Making all their soldiers giant did allow them a much better chance against the Project Golem marines. But against normal troops, it makes them much larger targets and keeps them from entering normal sized buildings and ships.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Projecting from their forearms.
- Boom, Headshot!: Unlike previous games, you can actually do more damage by shooting them in the head.
- The Bus Came Back: It's hard to tell because of the art style, but they seem to be the same species as the pirates encountered on Aether.
- Dual Wielding: Pirate troopers wield two energy scythes at the expense of any ranged weapons.
- Elite Mooks: There are elite versions of every variety of pirate. Instead of being enhanced by Phazon like in previous Prime titles, they merely have thicker armour and more powerful weapons.
- Giant Mook: All of them. They used technology from the ancient civilization on Bion to alter their own physiology and increase their size.
- Laser Blade: The style of their melee weapons.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If they hadn't increased the size of their soldiers, and thus scaled up their bases to allow them to operate, the Project Golem marines would have had to abandon their mechs in order to enter the pirate facilities and thus been easy targets.
- Took a Level in Badass: Beyond the obvious, which is that the Federation needed multiple teams of troopers equipped with mechs to take them on. They went above and beyond previous Pirate groups by capturing Samus.
Pirate Creations
Spore Spawn
Debut: Super Metroid
- Alliterative Name: Spore Spawn.
- Botanical Abomination: A giant genetically engineered plant.
- Plant Aliens: Genetically-engineered though, but still counts.
- Shielded Core Boss: Its core is its weak point, so you have to wait for its shell/mouth to open to hit it.
- Skippable Boss: Unintentionally. By using a trick to obtain Super Missiles earlier than normal, it is possible to avoid fighting the Spore Spawn. You can even go back with Supers and backtrack through the path that exits from the boss's Super Missile Tank to claim the reward.
- Warmup Boss: Probably the simplest boss in the entire series. It's only a challenge due to being fought very early when you don't have much life.
Covern
Debut: Super Metroid
The spectral beings Phantoon used to guard the wrecked ship on Zebes.- Ambiguous Situation: It's not quite clear whether they were formed from the souls of the crewmates of the vessel they haunt or if Phantoon brought them with it when it moved into the ship.
- Body Horror: Each Covern is multiple spirits combined into a misshapen mass, resembling a floating mass of tumorous flesh with several skeletal heads.
- Multiple Head Case: They have no less than three visible heads in their sprites.
- No Ontological Inertia: Once Phantoon is "killed" they vanish.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: They're malformed, tumorous masses with several screaming heads that flicker into reality just long enough to get a hit in before dissipating.
- Was Once a Man: They used to be sentient beings (presumably Chozo if they were the ship's crew) before dying and becoming Phantoon's twisted minions.
Mecha Ridley
Debut: Metroid: Zero Mission
- Achilles' Power Cord: Because this weapon was not finished, Mecha Ridley is attached to several power cords and is thus unable to maneuver around Samus like the original space dragon it was based upon.
- All There in the Manual: Prior to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the name "Mecha Ridley" was translated from a name only mentioned in Japanese Zero Mission guides. Similarly, its only official English name at the time, Ridley Robot, was derived from the official Nintendo Power guidebook.
- Attack Its Weak Point: A spot on its chest is vulnerable. Presumably the pirates were going to armor it but didn't get the chance.
- Breath Weapon: It can breathe fire, just like the original Ridley.
- Dynamic Difficulty: If you collect all hidden items before confronting it, Mecha Ridley will become three times as tough and powerful.
- Eye Beams: One of its attacks consists of green laser beams coming from its eyes.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There's just no hint whatsoever that this thing exists before you confront it besides a short cutscene showing one of its eyes opening, but that could've been anything. It's to the point that a lot of the information we know about it comes from Word of God.
- Homing Projectile: Its missiles will target Samus wherever she stands.
- Killer Robot: It's primarily a weapon, after all.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Defeat it to start the obligatory self-destruct countdown.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Another one of its attacks. It fires those from its back.
- Post-Final Boss: It's technically the final boss of the game, but by then the main plot's been wrapped up and you're not on a timer. It's mainly a nice little bow to cap off Samus's acquisition of the ancient power suit.
- Robot Me: It's Ridley, except as a ROBOT!
- Stationary Boss: It can't move due to the power cables connecting it to the wall.
- Taking You with Me: Unlike most Metroid examples of Load-Bearing Boss, Mecha Ridley's self-destruct sequence is clearly meant to take Samus with it, as its eyes start blinking red the moment it's defeated.
- Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: This robot is not even close to being finished, as it was intended to have the walking and flying units installed. But given that Samus is infiltrating the Space Pirate Mothership and slaughtering all onboard, it is sent out to deal with the Hunter as a last ditch effort.
- Who Needs Their Whole Body?: It puts up a pretty good fight for a torso.
Parasite Queen
Debut: Metroid Prime
A genetically-enhanced Parasite fought in the Frigate Orpheon after she broke loose. First boss of Metroid Prime."Parasite female, genetically enhanced by unknown means."
—Scan Data
- Acid Attack: While the parasites have acidic mouth glands naturally, Phazon exposure caused a mutation that enhanced said glands on the Queen, which is why she's constantly drooling acid from the mouth. Presumably, this is the source of her Breath Weapon attack.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Phazon experimenting turned this otherwise rat-sized parasite into a huge monstrosity.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Parasite Queens were the most successful test of Phazon's effects on her kind, having managed to reach their humongous size without dying from over-exposure. Then two of them broke out and started killing and infesting the crew. By the time Samus gets there, parasites are running all over the now-stricken ship and most of the crew are either dead or in such states that putting a Charge Beam through their heads is a Mercy Kill.
- Insect Queen: While not necessarily insects, the Parasites and their method of reproduction are fairly insectoid.
- Monster Progenitor: Most of the regular parasites you find in your way (presumably some of them are her fellow test subjects) are implied to come from her.
- King Mook: The biggest of the Parasites you find. And the strongest too.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Justified. She falls into the Frigate's core reactor after being defeated, causing it to malfunction.
- Shielded Core Boss: It uses the reactor's shields to protect itself from Samus's beams. Strangely, the opposite isn't true, as the Parasite's attacks can pass through the shields for no real reason.
- Starter Villain: The first boss of Prime. Also, the first Phazon-infused boss of several Samus meets.
- There Is Another: There are actually three Parasite Queens on the ship, but Samus only fights the one in the reactor core. Another one that broke free and went on a rampage with it was killed by the Pirates themselves as it reached the evacuation chamber, and the third one was still in stasis before it broke free once the reactor went critical. Luckily, by the time Samus walks into this event during the evacuation sequence, the Pirates themselves kill it before it can do anything.
Thardus
Debut: Metroid Prime
The least of your problems on Tallon IV...
- "East Quarantine Cave has been secured. Specimen remains in the Quarantine area. All experiments have been suspended pending pacification of area. Quarantine specimen exhibits highly aggressive behavior. Its body structure, composed of Phazon ore, appears nearly invulnerable. This has rendered our efforts to train and discipline subject useless as security breaches resulting in massive casualties have occurred. Access is strictly prohibited until further notice."—Project Titan
- An Ice Person: Is able to perform an attack that will encase Samus in ice if it hits. Also creates an ice storm as the battle progresses hindering her ability to see.
- Attack Its Weak Point: You must use the thermal visor to locate Phazon nodes vulnerable to missile attacks, then shoot them enough to shatter the rocks covering them before shooting the nodes themselves until they explode. Rinse and repeat until the boss dies.
- Boss Arena Recovery: Breaking the rocks Thardus is trying to throw at you reveals items.
- Developer's Foresight: Thardus has extreme weakness to the Plasma beam while the Ice Beam does no damage; the player shouldn't have these weapons during the fight.
- Elemental Powers: Dishing Out Dirt and An Ice Person, all in one.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that Phazon granted inanimate material intelligence hints at the Phazon itself being sentient.
- Golem: It's also a Phazonlem. This results in...
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Subverted. The Pirates realized it was too difficult to control, and in a rare flash of savviness quarantined it and left it dormant rather than attempt to control it or completely scrap the experiment, making occasional tests on it and waiting until a way to control it becomes more accessible. Too bad Samus found it before they finished...
- Power Copying: You absorb the spider ball from his defeated rubble pile. Because... magnets?
- Psycho Prototype: An early attempt at Phazon animation of inanimate material. It backfired spectacularly by creating a Rock Monster which instinctively tried to kill everything and anything in reach.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: While Samus needs to the use the Thermal Visor to detect the Phazon nodes in Thardus's rocky body, actually exposing the nodes overloads the visor with the released thermal energy and forces Samus to switch back to the Combat Visor until she destroys them.
- Rock Monster: An entity of living ice and rock empowered by Phazon.
- Rolling Attack: Will periodically form into a ball and attempt to squash the player. If the player decides to risk dropping some Morph Ball bombs in the path of its attack it can expose Thardus's weak point without needing to use the Thermal Visor.
- Shock and Awe: Can generate moderate electric attacks as well.
- Shock Wave Stomp: The aforementioned ice attack is triggered by smashing the ground with its "fists".
- Telekinesis: The whole "creature" is nothing more than a loose collection of Phazon fused rocks assembled into a roughly humanoid shape. It also throws stones at the player using this ability.
- Weaponized Animal: The Pirates attempt, but ultimately fail to turn Thardus into a weapon. He's in the cave where the player finds him because they found it difficult to tame.
- The Worm That Walks: It is not just one singular lump of rock, ice, and Phazon ore. It's a collection of floating rocks in a roughly humanoid shape.
Elite Pirates
Debut: Metroid Prime
After numerous failures at creating super soldiers through Phazon exposure, several key breakthroughs with the production of the "Phazon Strain Vertigo" allowed the creation of these deadly warriors."Phazon-enhanced Space Pirate. Incredibly strong, armored, and well armed."
—Scan Data
- Body Horror: Phazon mutations aside, their artillery cannons are grafted into their shoulders, something that can be seen in more grisly detail on the character model in the Remastered version.
- Elite Mooks: It's right there in their names.
- Legacy Character: Two of them, in different ways. There are Pirate units that share the name in Federation Force, though they lack any Phazon enhancements, and there are the Berserkers, which have a different name but are clearly the next step in the project.
- Mighty Glacier: They aren't particularly fast but they can soak up a lot of fire. One of the scans note it would be wise to field them alongside the far more mobile regular infantry and flying troops to compensate.
- Mook Chivalry: Averted. One of the scans mentions having them work in concert with other troops in order to circumvent the Elite's weaknesses.
- No-Sell: Their energy siphon systems make all beam attacks useless.
- Psycho Prototype: Not them, but the initial test subjects of Project Helix proved disastrous as the regular Phazon injections caused their brain tissue to degenerate even as their muscles were augumented. The ones who actually survived their birth and infancy had unrecoverable psychotic breakdowns as juveniles where they killed anything in reach before expiring. Only once the breakthrough of the "Phazon Strain Vertigo" was achieved were Elite Pirates successfully created, not that it stopped testing alternate methods as the Phazon Elite proved.
- Rapid Aging: The Phazon infusion seems to have accelerated their aging, going from embryos to adults in only a matter of days. However, it's noted in the Pirate logs that it's highly likely not even the Omega Pirate has very long to live as a result of the Phazon infusion due to cell degeneration, as none of the Elites have survived past "two deca-cycles".
- Shockwave Stomp: They create one with their wave quake generators.
- Shoulder Cannon: They have miniature artillery cannons mounted on their shoulders.
- Super Soldier: Their purpose.
- Tyke Bomb: According to the Pirate logs, many of the Elite Pirates were infused with Vertigo Phazon when they were just embryos, meaning they were meant to be super soldiers from the moment they are born.
Phazon Elite
Debut: Metroid Prime
An Elite Pirate that was directly infused with a variant of energized Phazon at the cost of its sanity."Elite Pirate infused with energized Phazon."
—Scan Data
- Elite Mooks: It's a step beyond the Elite Pirates, who themselves were this to the standard Pirate troops.
- MacGuffin Guardian: Samus has to release it from stasis and fight it to the death in order to acquire the Chozo Artifact of Warrior, which was seemingly locked away with it.
- No-Sell: It has the same energy siphon systems as the standard elites.
- Phlebotinum Overdose: Unlike the Elite Pirates who were carefully infused with the Vertigo Phazon strand as embryos, the Phazon Elite was directly infused with "energized" Phazon. As a result, it's a walking mass of mutant growths without much if any higher thought. Its not any less vicious though.
- Psycho Prototype: It's the Elite Mook of an existing Elite Mook, but the direct energized Phazon infusion stripped the Phazon Elite of much of its higher brain functions as a consequence.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Phazon Elite is resting inside a stasis pod when Samus encounters it. She needs to intentionally break it out with Power Bombs in order to claim the Chozo Artifact in the room with it.
- Shockwave Stomp: It can do this more rapidly than the standard Elites to make up for its lack of an artillery cannon.
- There Is Another: While Samus only ever fights one Phazon Elite, log book entries use the plural form while describing it, indicating that more of them were made.
- Volcanic Veins: Bright blue veins filled with Phazon.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The energized Phazon infusion has reportedly drastically reduced the Phazon Elite's lifespan even by the standards of the Elite Pirates, not that Science Team actually cares.
Omega Pirate
"Finish Her!"
Debut: Metroid Prime
A living testament to the lengths High Command will go to twist and mutate their own kind."Elite Pirate Upsilon's propensity for Phazon has enabled our research team to infuse it far beyond our safety restrictions, and the results have been extremely encouraging. Its constant Phazon diet has increased its mass exponentially, but it has retained all mental faculties and shows dexterity with all Elite weaponry, including Plasma incendiary launchers and the chameleon manta issued for cloaking purposes. Elite Pirate Upsilon exhibits miraculous healing abilities; when injured, it seeks out Phazon deposits and coats itself in the substance, which instantly mends the creature's wounds. The subject, which we are code-naming Omega Pirate based on these developments, shows potential to be a new standard for our armies. Our only concern at this point is its potential over-dependence on Phazon."
—Pirate Data Log 11.232.8
- Adaptational Modesty: The Omega Pirate has a lot more armor plating in the Remastered version, covering up the mechanical spinal column that all of the Tallon IV pirates seem to have.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Considering how normal Space Pirates are approximately human-sized, it's quite jarring.
- Born Winner: The only reason he's so huge and powerful compared to the other Elite Pirates is because he was just naturally born with a superhigh Phazon tolerance, so the scientists were able to pump nearly limitless amounts of Phazon into him beyond what would kill most. However...
- Cast from Lifespan: Science team's research suggests that though he's had literally no adverse effects to the Phazon yet, his lifespan will likely be short judging from even the successful Elite Pirates' survival rates.
- Climax Boss: He's the pinnacle of the Pirates' experimentation with Phazon in Prime, and his defeat changes the focus of the plot from disrupting the Pirates' operations to removing the threat of Phazon in general. He also carries the final suit upgrade in the game, the Phazon Suit, although Samus still has to gather the Chozo artifacts across the planet before she can proceed to the Impact Crater.
- Code Name: Was originally just 'Space Pirate Upsilon', before being dubbed the Omega Pirate by the research teams.
- Evil Laugh: He gives a very creepy one while he's cloaked, which is also the cue that he's about to appear in a Phazon puddle and start rebuilding his armor.
- Eye Lights Out: Its flaming eyes go out when it dies.
- Flunky Boss: And God help you if it summons Wave Troopers. You're warned that it's about to do this when it growls "GET HER!"
- Healing Factor: Can absorb raw Phazon to grow back damaged flesh and exoskeleton tissue.
- I'm Melting!: As it dies, its body begins to crumble apart and melt into Phazon. As it fell onto Samus while doing this, this causes her suit to absorb and merge with its fluids to become the Phazon Suit.
- Invisibility Cloak: Turns one on when his armor is damaged to protect his health bar till it is fixed.
- King Mook: A bigger, better version of the Elite Pirates. Justified as he's an Elite Pirate who's a Born Winner, having the right genetics to safely absorb far more Phazon than his fellows and thus mutate more drastically.
- Monstrous Mandibles: He's been given a pair of splitting mandibles near his lower jaw, in the Remastered version.
- Phlebotinum Dependence: It will retreat to Phazon puddles to restore its damaged armor. This is also the only performance concern that has been noted by Science Team, as it will prioritize this over continuing combat when possible along with the logistical concerns of even having a sufficient Phazon supply always on hand for it.
- Shoulder Cannon: Dual Wielding them, no less.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only shows up for a single boss fight in Metroid Prime, but the circumstances of his death indirectly led to the creation of Dark Samus.
- Super Soldier: The largest and most powerful of them.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It's certainly trying to doom Samus, but as a result of the conditions of its death Dark Samus is essentially born from its remains.
Berserkers
Debut: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Berserker Knights and Lords are the newest iteration of Phazon super soldier experiments, replacing the old Elite Pirates."Berserker Lords are a desperate measure, designed to exploit Phazon as much as possible. The few Berserker Knights that survive the highest level of corruption are promoted to Lord status. Lords are distinguished by their ornate Phazite plating and the Phazon reserves they carry on their backs."
—Scan Data
- Degraded Boss: The first Berserker Lord is also the first boss battle of Corruption. The Berserker Knights are far less formidable.
- Destination Defenestration: The first Bersker Lord is introduced throwing a federation marine through a window.
- Giant Mook: You do get to see Berserker Knights deployed alongside other pirate troops, which does somewhat make up for their short comings. It's still not enough to beat Samus, but Federation Marines got very nervous when pirate troopers had this kind of backup.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Having built in projectiles does not stop Berserker Knights from throwing other pirate troops at their enemies.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Killing them involves knocking their own projectiles back at them. Samus pretty much has to beat Lords this way. With the weaker Knights she can break their armor with a screw attack, by pass it with a nova beam shot while using the x-ray visor or, in open air areas, dispatch them with a shot from her gunship.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: Unlike most phazon cases, it's the brown and red Knights that are inferior to the blue and grey Lords. However, the red projectiles the Lords shoot are more dangerous than the blue ones.
- Rasputinian Death: The first Berserker Lord is shot by Samus, electrocuted by a barrier, thrown into the void of space, and rammed with a fighter.
- Shockwave Stomp: This is one of their attacks. The Lords in particular are strong enough, and fought early enough in the game, that they will almost assuredly kill Samus if she happens to be underneath one when it does it, although the shock wave itself she can very much survive and they usually use it when Samus is fairly far away. Still, considering her suit can take hits from Kraid, Omega Pirate and Mogenar, all of whom are even larger than Berserker Lords, it's a testament to the strength of the Lords.
- Super Spit: They can spray liquid Phazon from their mouths.
- Unskilled, but Strong: They are not outfitted with any of the equipment used by Elite Pirates, as most berserkers would not have the dexterity to use them anyway. They also are not really in need of energy siphoning, shielding or cannons when it takes half the game for Samus to find anything her cannon can shoot that doesn't bounce off their bodies and those bodies shoot back on their own. That cloaking device would have been nice, though.
- Vacuum Mouth: Berserker Lords may attempt this if they see Samus in morph ball mode. For better or worse they can't manage to swallow her if she does get caught in their mouths.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: The second Berserker Lord is the same as the first. By then you've acquired weapons that make the battle much easier.
Master Brain
- Arc Villain: The recurring pirate villains are indisposed at the time of the game, so it serves as the primary threat.
- Big Bad: Of Federation Force.
- Brain in a Jar: Like its predecessors.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: It never attacks directly, but it has self-repairing batteries of turrets to defend itself and summons minions.
- Evil Knockoff: It's a pirate-made Aurora Unit, which were themselves good knockoffs of Mother Brain.
- Expy: It serves the same role as Mother Brain and looks almost exactly like an Aurora Unit.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The only clue to its existence is earlier in the level where you encounter it.
- Healing Factor: It has an autorepair function and will regenerate health if not damaged quickly enough.
- Huge Holographic Head: It briefly appears in hologram form, though that's actually how big it is.
- Mind-Control Device: Unlike Mother Brain it actually demonstrates this ability in the game, using it to turn Samus against the marines.
- Minimalist Cast: Besides General Miles, Master Brain is the only character to talk in the campaign.
- Organic Technology: It's a living supercomputer.
- Purple Is Powerful: Its holographic representation is purple, reflecting its imposing nature and mental powers.
- Sapient Ship: The Doomseye is essentially its body.
- Shrink Ray: Inverted. It controls the enlargement mechanisms used by the pirates.
- Wetware CPU: Its role onboard the Doomseye.
Mimic
Debut: Metroid Manga
A shapeshifting assassin created to kill Federation officials. Appears in the manga.- All There in the Manual: In never appears in the games, only the canon manga.
- Made of Iron: It doesn't even notice the Federation guards shooting it.
- No Body Left Behind: Samus blasts it into ash.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Something capable of drastically altering its mass and shape, enough to fool the most advanced sensors and security checks before changing into a form specifically designed to kill its target should be terrifying. Instead Samus kills it in seconds.
- Shapeshifter Baggage: When it disguised itself as a bundle of flowers a child could carry it easily, but its combat form towers over humans.
- Too Many Mouths: It has extra mouths in its claws.
- Verbal Tic: Exactly half of its dialogue is the word kill.
