Headscratchers / Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

• So, what practical purpose would Quadraxis have served as security, much less a war machine? Was he meant to be a series of machines by the Luminoth to fight the Ing, or a one of a kind machine? Combat wise, he wouldn't have much chance against the Ing Hordes. Its huge size may be intimidating, but most of its weapons would only be useful for short range combat instead of wide scale damage against the Ing, which begs the question of why it would need to be that big to begin with. And its slow movement would leave it a sitting duck for attacks, even taking into consideration how resilient it is. And how could something as bulky as it possibly traverse the terrain of either Light or Dark Aether? And that's not even getting into the difficulty of transporting it in pieces into Dark Aether, much less building it there.
  • It could serve as a giant target while faster quads, wall crawling mekinobites and flying luminoth warriors move to more advantageous positions or use it as a shield, a shield that shoots back with missiles, bullets and annihilation reactions. It's shock wave stomps could force opposition into the air where they could be potentially more vulnerable and we can tell the Luminoth intended to have at least two Quadraces. Perhaps two doing top spins in a room would be enough hindrance to most interlopers?
  • It could have been intended to be used against the Ing Emperor, which is a considerably larger target.
  • It most likely was intended as a juggernaut against Ing big or small. As an enormous war machine, Quadraxis would've been the only being in Sanctuary Fortress capable of scaling the high cliffs on its own (and thus relocating to other areas as needed). The Luminoth probably should've infused it with light crystals to keep the Ing from stealing it.

• So the Luminoth are losing the war badly. We know from scans that the elderly and the young alike are throw into the war as a last desperate attempt to push back the horde. At the start of the game the Ing are literally about to destroy their entire planet and the Luminoth's solution? Put the remaining population into stasis and hope that the Ing go away? Did the Luminoth have some sort of precognitive ability like the Chozo and so knew a great saviour would come save them at the last possible second?
  • Its meant to cement how utterly desperate they've become. 50 years of constant war without respite or outside-assistance has ruined them. U-Mos orders the survivors into stasis, because if the Ing kill them, they are extinct. All he can do is pray for salvation, or eternal sleep. They've reached their Darkest Hour.
  • This is more or less said to be true in the Lore scan "Twilight". U-Mos orders the remaining survivors into cryo-pods (that the scans say are virtually indestructible) to give them a chance, and then waits for the end. All he can really do is pray "for salvation, from deliverance from the terror of the Ing".

• Why don't the Ing try to posses Samus before she gets the devise that make her immune? They fight her during this time by possessing corpses and Splinters, why don't those Ing try it on her? Notably in the Great Temple, when the Ing launch what was to be their final assault on the Luminoth, surely Samus would make a better host for that than the Splinters they possessed instead?
  • Sapients are able to fight their possession (it says Space Pirate are susceptible because they're inclined to obedience), and a failed possession would kill the Ing (kill the host with them, strand them in the light world which they can't long survive). When the Ing first directly encountered Samus, they overwhelmed her and stole most of her equipment and weapons with Samus barely escaping. They didn't think Samus was worth trying to posses until too late.

• Likewise the Ing are one room away from defeating the Luminoth yet seem more interested in attacking the Federation and Space Pirates (based off their logs). What were the merciless Ing waiting for?
  • Most likely, the GF troopers were a new threat to them, never encountered before and their presence distracted the war-obsessed race. Not to mention they had a hard time trying to assimilate humans to use against the Luminoth.
  • U-Mos was guarding that area and, as a last surviving sentinel, presumably kept the stasis chambers safe and intact. Remember that these sentinels in other logs took down scores of Ing before succumbing to wounds. There's nothing to indicate that U-Mos wasn't equally bad-ass. The Ing presence in that region were also very light, so that should explain why they weren't actively destroying the last surviving Luminoth.
  • As for the GF Troopers (and space pirates, for that matter), they had two additional races they could now toy with and conquer. Likely both the federation and space pirates acted as a phenomenal distraction for the last surviving Luminoth, the latter of which was essentially actively engaged in war with the species and was taking the fight to the Ing's own turf (and losing).

• Why, during the above Ing attack on the Great Temple, where there only six Ing? Prior attacks on the Energy Controllers were said to number in the "thousands" and Luminoth have been to take on hundreds of Ing. Why launch such a small attack it if would risk losing the Energy Transfer Module which was essential to their plans?
  • For what it's worth, the Ing, while intelligent, have never shown the inclination to be strategic (use strategy beyond overwhelming numbers) like that. Maybe they just got cocky.
    • There's also the fact that the game was made for Gamecube in 2004.

• Why don't the underwater portals in Torvus suck all the water through them when active?
  • The portal are only active for seconds at a time, not enough to have notable effect, and Samus is too heavy to noticed the suction. As for the lack of water and wetness in Dark Torvus, it's equivalent to water is poisonous sludge that's too viscous to sink into (unit you get the Light Suit), normal water might instantly evaporate in such a hostile environment.
  • The portal is something more complex than a hole, It's a 3D hole. Maybe since the pressure on each side of the light world end is equal, they're no net flow.

• The Ing were able to posses the Mecha-Mooks of Sanctuary Fortress, enabling them to slaughter the Luminoth defenders. Why didn't the Luminoth destroy their machines or give them some countermeasures against possession once this vulnerability became apparent?
  • We don't know when they found out about this. Maybe that battle was the first time the Ind did that (at least to the Luminoth's knowledge).
  • We do learn from the Space Pirate logs that the conquest of Sanctuary Fortress happened after the Space Pirates arrived on the planet, as they document an attack on a mountainous region and an increase in planetary instability that matches the effects of the Ing draining Sanctuary's Light of Aether. This shows that the Ing's ability to control machines was discovered very recently, so the Luminoth may simply not have had time to develop any countermeasures.
  • As to preventing the possession, its indicated that they never quite developed a way to gurantee they themselves couldn't be possessed, so it isn't all that surprising they couldn't prevent it for machines either. Even if they did, the Ing could develope a new way to possess via the Lensman Arms Race.

• How did Dark Samus get from Tallon IV to Aether anyway?
  • Stowaway on a Pirate vessel? It's how she got to them in Corruption's plot anyway.

• Throughout the game, Samus encounters Morph Ball bomb and spinner slots that she can't use because half the component atoms are on Dark Aether. So then shouldn't its counterpart on Dark Aether be equally unusable since only half the atoms are there and the other half are on Aether?
  • Chalk that up to a bad description. The device really is all on Dark Aether, and all you can on Aether is a reflection or echo of it.

• How does U-Mos conveniently have status updates on each area of Aether? How does he know what the Ing are up to immediately after Samus finishes each dungeon?
  • In Torvus you can find Sentinel Crystals, which scans indicate are used to watch for Ing activity. Boom.

• A-Kul and her forces were sent to look for the keys to the Sky Temple. Why are her forces bodies all on Light Aether, if the keys themselves are on Dark Aether?

• Just how does the Luminoth create the visual electronic illusion (the surrounding environment, like all the way down)?
  • There probably is something down there, you know, a certain someone falls out a window.
• How come the Dark Suit works perfectly for Samus? That armour was made for the Luminoths, who are essentially giant Chozo-esque moths.
  • Samus' suit has always had adaptive properties and is somewhat prone to Mega Manning. It's been shown to use Galactic Federation, Space Pirate, Alimbic, and whatever other technology there is flawlessly. Why not Luminoth? It shouldn't be a size issue, either, since the suit managed to turn a giant laser drill into the Nova Beam, or Ghor's Plasma Cannon into a Plasma Beam, or even the Omega Pirate's armour (and body) into the Phazon Suit. There's also the fact that the Luminoth and the Chozo have had some level of contact; there's a Screw Attack on Aether, so they're fairly compatible.