SHE!!! IS!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

It’s my blog, and I get to nerd out about Metroid fan covers if I want.

Track 10: Power

I swear, I love this track so much. I was never a fan of the original Raven Beak theme. The percussion felt lacking, the vocal element didn’t seem to match the gravity of the situation, and the overall track just seemed discordant and lacking pattern. However, “Power” absolutely improves upon the base track in almost every way I can possibly think of.

The entire album returns a lot of old leitmotifs, from the iconic Brinstar depths, to the chase theme of the SA-X. Most importantly to “Power” is the eerie loop of the Super Metroid save room. It appears elsewhere in the album, but it is actually the first leitmotif within the final track. Its inclusion is brilliant. Raven Beak has been spying on us, lying to us, and manipulating us through the Network Station save rooms. To hear this leitmotif turned sinister is a perfect display of the realization that we were never alone, and NOT in a good way. The track then transitions into Samus’s theme, then Raven Beak’s leitmotif in a monologic fashion, perfect for Raven Beak’s declarations and ordering of Samus to capitulate. The almost vocoded vocal element really excels here as a low hum in a moment of intermission. You can imagine Raven Beak pacing about his thrown room explaining the necessity of his schemes, and his justifications.

Then as the actual battle portion of the song begins, we see that the pace is slower than the original, allowing the Raven Beak leitmotif to really shine and draw itself out. The save room leitmotif is carried over, as well, adding some variety and vigilantly reminding us of how well our enemy knows us. The full vocal rendition of his theme just fits so damn well with his overwhelming power and technology. We actually get a bit of the heroic part of Samus’s theme as well, perhaps to mark a significant set of blows. Then a brief interlude of the darker first half of her theme, no doubt signifying Raven Beak losing one wing and tearing off the other himself. The final act of the song shows a distinct level of desperation on the part of both combatants. We can imagine that they are both running out of resources, and the looming threat of planetary destruction. The finale showcases Samus’s theme and closes very upbeat. However, we all know that victory doesn’t quite happen as Samus anticipated.

Though it does come in the end

This track has given me several ideas for my own rewrite of the Metroid saga. I constantly had the idea of the throne room being heavily damaged throughout the fight, cuz, I mean

Look at that massive beam. There is no way he isn’t at least singing the banners. However, “Power” makes me think more into it as symbolism for Raven Beak dismantling Chozo society and morals in order to fit his own insane agenda and ideals. I could even see the towering Chozo statues tumbling down onto him during the final phase of the fight, as if their likenesses are throwing themselves upon him, begging him to cease this madness, to stop attempting to kill his own daughter. I also imagine both of them losing weaponry and tools throughout the fight as well, further amounting to their desperation as they run out of power bombs, super missiles, miniature suns, and other critical ammunition. I also like to think of Raven Beak using a spear like other Chozo warriors, but being disarmed of it throughout the fight, showing that he is no rightful heir to their legacy. There are so many ideas floating through my head on the matter.

In any case, Sam Dillard did excellent work here. And you should ABSOLUTELY check out the album! The link for it is in the video description.

Is the song in your "GIRLS" edit one you remixed yourself? Or is there another original source (besides the voice clip)?

Yeah, I mixed it myself, I remembered that old meme with the song Boys by Charlie XCX and when I knew the amount of syllables lined up with the Velma meme, I knew I had to make it. Feel free to use it or make your own with some better fine tuning.

I think I need to start appealing to my core audience more.

Ya know, one thing I like to think of with Metroid Prime is that Samus lands on this planet full of Chozo history that she’s never seen before and starts scanning everything in site like an excited little kid at a museum. She grew up with the Chozo, learned their ways, and lost them all to the pirates. Now, she has a world full of the remains of her home culture. You can just imagine her scanning every single statue of a Chozo to find out this was, why their statue is here, and what they were like. And she wants to know what the people of Tallon IV did. What was life like there? What did the average citizen do there?

Basically, Samus getting brain rot over her own culture’s history of which she’s been deprived of information about until now.

Had this sped up audio of my friend ranting about Lunchly for a while now. Someone brought up the idea of this being Uzi ranting about JCJenson and I just had to draw it. She went a little obsessive in the bunker. Also N likes his oil drippy, brah.

Reblogging cuz it was posted as mature content for some inexplicable reason. It’s fixed now though

So… scope creep, huh?

For those of you who may not know, I do have a rewrite of the Metroid Zero Mission manga, as well as most of the games in the series, in the works. However, the manga rewrite in particular deals with some very heavy and intense topics, topics that need time and care to get right. So uh… yeah, I don’t think that’s coming out before Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, save for some massive delay.

However, there is a story in the works that will meet your eyes, and ears, far sooner. This story is based on a premise and the music works of the YouTuber Seregauss. This is the story of his latest album, Metroid Prime: The Great Hunt.

YouTube

Metroid Prime: The Great Hunt

an album for a concept metroid prime hunters sequel

Taking place after the events of Metroid Dread, this story follows up on some of the loose plot threads left by Dread, Fusion, and Other M, and operates as a sequel to Metroid Prime Hunters.

Far from the homeworlds of the lost Alimbic Civilization, the secret technologies of the Alimbics, left buried for millennia, have been reactivated, spurring on a new hunt for long lost power. Samus Aran, now wrestling with her Metroid powers and distrust in the Galactic Federation and Chozo, must put an end to the anomalous rifts running rampant throughout the Collidus Star System. In her journey, Samus will face deadly wildlife, familiar faces, and sinister new foes, all while uncovering secrets new and old.

This is a story I am very hyped to be working on. Seregauss has a lot of my favorite Metroid covers, and The Great Hunt might be some of his best work yet. In addition, I am privy to some inside information as to artwork and designs which will be implemented into this story. I will be posting some of my own artwork soon, including some artwork of a redesign of the Space Pirate Bounty Hunter, Weavel. Stay tuned, and happy hunting!

I feel like this more sympathetic tone towards them could have made Ridley’s appearance in Metroid: Samus Returns a bit more impactful by having him be a sort of narrative symbolism for the use and abuse of the Metroids by higher powers who wanted to play god. Maybe start the game with Samus delving into the desolate, barren husk of a landscape that is SR388. The planet is cold and dead on the outside, dust fluttering about in the wind, harkening back to all the dry, lifeless bodies left behind in the wake of the rampaging Metroids we’ve seen throughout the series. As she delves deeper into the underground cave networks, it becomes clear that, while many have become terrifying, dangerous predators, there is an ecosystem that some that aren’t Ridley may call beautiful. There are creatures that take on different roles in the food chain, with different mutations of Metroids having many different roles in this natural, albeit highly competitive, web of life.

Maybe have some monologues about the tragedy of it all. The capabilities of these creatures are sure to be exploited if ill-intentioned people acquire them, and moving an entire, dangerous ecosystem off world simply not be feasible for a simple Bounty Hunter, even one of such renown as Samus Aran. It’s a very unique dilemma to explore. Either kill an entire ecosystem of innocent creatures, or let them live and possibly end up with your inaction causing hundreds, even thousands of deaths in the long run, all passing on in incredible agony.

Then, all is said and done. An entire biological order has been wiped from existence. The Queen Metroid, which spawned all this blooming life like a goddess of creation, has been slain. With her gone, the possibility of an ecosystem of this type is gone forever. But one Metroid remains. A single, lone hatchling, oblivious to all of Samus’s terrible deeds on this world, innocent and friendly. The possibility still remains. The Space Pirates have already succeeded in asexually multiplying Metroids to orders of magnitude of their original supplies in the past. This one single specimen could make a legion if it falls into the wrong hands.

But this is a child. A lone child, without its mother, sitting in an afterglow of ash and death, with none of its kind left for hundreds of light years. It looks up hopefully to a stoic, alien figure, sigils in its technology baring the mark of the Chozo. Quite familiar, no?

As Samus and the last child of the Metroids leave this barren waste behind, she believes that maybe some good can come of this. If nothing else, she has done some small favor for this weary conscience of her’s.

Then, who else should show to complete the metaphor but the Cunning God of Death himself? Contrasting Samus’s gentle approach with the baby Metroid, Ridley is brutal, shrieking alien obscenities at this frightened child, beating it into submission as it fights back against his taloned grasp. This is the face of heartless control and abuse, this is the face of those who made the Metroids an enemy to life in the galaxy. They used these animals to commit atrocities, like throwing the condemned to a pack of starved wolves. This is what playing god looks like. And now the Hunter must cut him down to size.

Really nice thing about Metroid as a series? The Metroids themselves are both presented as incredibly terrifying creatures with the after-effects of their lifeforce draining being showcased disturbingly, particularly in Super Metroid and Prime 3 (GFS Valhalla, anyone?) yet the overall narrative framing of them still makes it pretty clear that nothing in the series is really their fault, the danger they pose is entirely due to outside factors like the Space Pirates and Phazon. Even though them starting to show up in any given game is usually a sign that you're entering The Hard Part, they're still just creatures at the end of the day and treated very sympathetically; Space Pirates abusing them is specifically called out in some of the Prime 2 scan entries.

Our interest in their hand sanitizer was purely for the betterment of mankind. Everything has clearly gotten out of hand now, yes, but it was worth the risk.

Him again…

If you wanna see more nuance on Raven Beak and his internal dialogue and thought processes, I HIGHLY recommend reading The Downfall of Ashkar Behek by Acayl on AO3. I will abstain from any major spoilers, but you get to see how he comes to his headspace he has as the Mawkin Warlord we see in Dread. As the name suggests, you see his fall from moral grace, and his mental instability.

As for my own take on Raven Beak, I believe I’ve said previously that he is good at using fact based reasoning to for his own arguments. In my own retelling of events, he cemented the Thoha’s weakened state by using SR-388 as an example. The Thoha preach peace and coexistence with the universe and all its inhabitants. Yet they created an abomination of a species to solve their crisis on SR-388, and attempted to destroy the entire planet to eliminate the beings born by their own hands, their children, so to speak. He posits that the Thoha have strayed from their roots and their morals, and that they have no standing to hold sway over the Galaxy. It’s an insightful commentary that truly shakes the Thoha Hasana to its core. They fully renounce violence, refuse to kill the last Metroid in their possession due to the moral repugnance of their actions on SR-388, and withdraw from Galactic society and politics. The Metroids have become the great shame of the Thoha.

Left out of Raven Beak’s statements to the Thoha Hasana are his own plans of using the Metroids for his own gain. He conveniently omits the fact that he would not go so far as to commit genocide on the Thoha on SR-388 were it not for the military boon a supply of Metroids would afford him. What the full on massacre afforded him was the benefit of being the only one with the whole story, able to dole out and withhold as much of the truth as he sees fit. The only Thoha to know of his treachery is Quiet Robe. However, he’s not able to tell anyone. He is safely secured on ZDR, constantly monitored, and given no access to communications deemed unnecessary to the purpose Raven Beak has for him.

What he told them was the truth, but he did omit certain details the Thoha would certainly like to know.

Once again, read The Downfall of Ashkar Behek. It has many differences to my own take on him, but it’s so damn good I’ve used it for a fair bit of inspiration.

Sometimes I do have to question the decision to make Samus into the Chozo's personal champion/warrior; I think there's def some questionable moral implications about this. Especially when you find out that the Chozo let Raven Beak donate his DNA into Samus', which is just a whole can of worms; How the heck did this happen, how did they agree to it??? Did Raven Beak threaten them, why did they never tell Samus? Why an interest in Samus? How did Mother Brain think of all this, because I'd be surprised if she just never noticed despite her massive control over Zebes.

It's different not mentioning it was Gray Voice's DNA specifically, because I can see why it wouldn't be deemed relevant by either the Chozo or Samus herself up until the circumstances of that reveal. Samus definitely knew they donated somebody's DNA from that community, and she only knows of Chozo on Zebes, not Tallon IV or SR388.

I could see the Dread arc in a Metroid show being a storyline where Samus is kinda forced to confront her Chozo heritage, her relationship with them, ask these sorts of uncomfortable questions; I think Samus has a problem with seeing herself as only a weapon, a destroyer, which should make her dynamic with Adam compelling in theory because despite being a military commander, he does try to remind Samus that she should have an existence outside of these things. And this plays into his AI reincarnation finding a way for Samus to survive Fusion while still completing her objective. The fact that Adam himself was a military human might play into this, because he might understand firsthand how Samus feels the need to be her role; More on that in a bit…

And after Fusion, after the guilt of the Metroid genocide, and now carrying one's DNA within her, I can see Samus having a lot of questions about what she is, who she's made up of, etc. So in the buildup to the proper Dread storyline, I like to imagine that after Fusion, Samus actually goes to Earth, the ancestral homeworld of humanity, to reconnect with that original side of hers, with Rodney and Virginia's.

Seeing how much humans are used by the Federation as attack dogs (per my own HCs and the series itself) makes Samus wonder if there's more than that, hence Earth. It's a way for her to clear her head from depression and take a damn vacation with Adam, who has his memories again... Maybe Anthony? I think Samus might be in too much of an awkward spot with the Federation to invite Anthony, because that would put him in such an uncomfortable position as a Federation employee himself.

Still, seeing the role that humans play as the Federation's infantry species makes Samus wonder, at some point; Is that why the Chozo chose to adopt me? Obviously they saved me, but they could've just left me at an orphanage, maybe insisted on seeing me through a successful adoption process. But instead, they took me to Zebes, away from my people, and changed me to be more like them. Maybe when I joined the Federation, it was in the hopes of reconnecting with my human side.

It's a bit of irrational, panicked doubt that Samus has the luxury of being able to voice to Adam, who acts as a more objective, rational observer after becoming an AI; He's also reconnecting with his emotions, and we possibly get an arc of him showing Samus his home on Earth and where he came from, if he isn't from another world entirely like Samus herself is.

There's definitely a recurring question: Did I even know my people? Do I know who runs through my veins? The Metroids are a good example of this question, since Samus thought of them as just dangerous animals, and for a brief while as unnatural bioweapons after learning more on SR388 (which helped to justify their extermination in her Mind). But then she meets the Queen and then the Infant, and has her whole world rocked via gradual realization.

So Raven Beak showing up is the perfect time to contribute, when Samus starts to reconsider her relationship with the Chozo, her existence as a weapon. And Raven Beak outright says, Samus was groomed by the Thoha into their weapon because they were cowards.

He says that the Thoha were hypocritical, useless cowards; Despite their supposed devotion to peace, down to making it physically painful to inflict it, they still had plenty of workarounds. The Thoha still saw firsthand how violence was a necessary, natural part of life; Case in point, the X were not about to respond to diplomacy, so the Thoha had to create the greatest bioweapon the galaxy has ever seen. And this bioweapon, despite their attempts, would be weaponized later on by so many others, and cause so much destruction.

They also saw the need for the Mawkin; Despite their hostility and dismissal of their 'warmonger' brethren, the Thoha accepted their help when pushed into a corner. It was Mawkin soldiers who gave their lives sealing away the Metroids, so that SR388 might live. So perhaps, then, it was only justice, blood for blood, that Raven Beak slaughtered the Thoha for the deaths of his soldiers.

(I don't see him as being sincere in terms of 'avenging' his soldiers, because I prefer to write the members of a cause as less sympathetic the higher up the command chain they go; Feels truer to real life imo.)

This is a very uncomfortable position for Samus, she's backed into a corner and cut off from a friend like Adam who would be there to speak reason and back her up; Here, she feels alone. This is nonsense, Samus insists. The Thoha made themselves resistant to violence so as to encourage different methods, another way.

Yes, and those 'different methods' were simply to make others do the violence for them, Raven Beak notes. That's why the Zebesian Thoha groomed Samus into their own Metroid, why they accepted Raven Beak's DNA donation. The Thoha weren't trying to minimize violence; They simply sought to keep their hands clean of the dirty work by manipulating/creating others to do it for them.

But Raven Beak knows, he's figured out there's no difference; At that point, just cut out the middle man, do it yourself! This is why the Mawkin are the loyalists, while the Thoha and other clans are traitors; Only the Mawkin remain the True Chozo. And Samus must join them, because like the Mawkin she knows the simple truth that violence IS a natural, necessary part of life. She's seen how naturally vicious animals can be, engaged in that violence herself.

Other things are also necessary, Samus challenges sarcastically. Do you expect me to increase those tenfold in my routine? Raven Beak dismisses that question; Maybe if the situation calls for it. But in this chaotic state, the galaxy needs violence more than it does diplomacy, and so violence is what Samus must offer.

On Raven Beak's end at least, he WAS interested in Samus' status as a human; The Federation's most widespread infantry species. Especially given his plans to clone an army of Metroids... And then an army of Samuses. In general he was intrigued by the use of bioweapons and chimeras, hence Raven Beak adding to hybrid warrior Samus.

This makes it all the more poetic that Raven Beak would forcibly become a chimera himself, thanks to an X; Fusing with Kraid's DNA, with Kraid and the Space Pirates as a whole also operating on the idea of "We are physically superior, especially in combat, so we deserve to take advantage of that for ourselves and rule. Also Metroids are good bioweapons."

So despite their opposition to one another, the Space Pirates and Mawkin are truly two peas in an X pod, aren't they? Raven Beak 'got his wish' by fusing with the Space Pirates' most physically powerful member, and indeed his kidnapping of Kraid might have something to do with his eugenics and bioweapon plans.

Maybe Samus brings up, that beings like her and the Metroids are just a few examples; But the majority of Thoha options was peace, and Raven Beak's folly is that he only recognizes violent options and their success, while only remembering the failures of peaceful options. But it just goes to show how flashy they are, that the Mawkin are too 'bored' and 'under-stimulated' with the banal work of real peace to glorify it. Maybe Samus says this, or Adam, or even Quiet Robe-X.

Point is; If Old Bird is still alive out there, Samus has a LOT of questions for him and the other Zebesian Thoha when they reunite. That's assuming Raven Beak didn't get to them first, and unlike the game, the Metroid show has them actually appear in-person to add to this chaotic arc for Samus. Maybe this could lead to a respectful disagreement, where Samus decides she HAS to fight and this is necessary; But she understands why the Thoha are averse and feel shame, after their warring past.

Thank you so much @coldgoldlazarus!

1. 3 Ships: Samantha Maxis x Elizabeth Grey, Gwen x Miles, (hot take) Samus Aran x Gandrayda

2. First Ship Ever:… I don’t even know what I was into back when I started finding relationships appealing so… maybe Glorybringer?

3. Last Song: Stone Cold (Super Smash Bros Ultimate version by A_A_RonHD)

4. Last Movie: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

5. Currently Reading: Nothing atm by just finished reading The Downfall of Ashkar Behek (a Metroid fanfic by Acayl on AO3)

6. Currently Watching: Journey’s Ahead by Tspro on YouTube

7. Currently Consuming: Bagel

8. Currently Craving: Dairy Queen ice cream

9. Oh jeez, I don’t even have 9 names to tag on here… @fanaticastrid @z-reblogs55 … I haven’t actually spoken to anyone else on here… at all

So…yeah

9 people you would like to get to know better

Batta, the Culture of the Zebesian Space Pirates

The Metroid Prime series has introduced the internal workings of the Space Pirates and expanded on it in subsequent entries. However, it is largely agreed upon by groups with the Metroid community (myself included) that the Space Pirates are a faction made up of many species. After all, the biology of the different enemy types in the Prime series alone is wildly different from game to game, aside from a bipedal, hunched posture. It can be assumed, therefore, that any discrepancies from game to game when describing the inner workings of the Space Pirates to simply be the culture of those individual species. For instance, the Urtraghians have far more brutal forms of punishment than the forces seen on Tallon IV. Now that then begs the question.

What about the culture of the Zebesians?

This exploration will, admittedly, be full of conjecture and fanons that I enjoy, but I hope you will enjoy either way.

The name Zebesian seems a bit strange to those who know the inner workings of Metroid lore, specifically about the Chozo, who were the residents of planet Zebes before the Space Pirates stormed the planet. The two big schools of thought as to the name from a Watsonian perspective are either that the Zebesians were driven off of Zebes in years past during the Chozo’s warlike past or that the name comes from their settlement upon Zebes that essentially became the way most of the Galaxy thought about the planet.

While I prefer the latter explanation, the former explanation does have some basis to it. Some of Dread’s many murals depict Mawkin soldiers coming into conflict with the Zebesian Space Pirates and defeating them. It is certainly possible that this is how the Chozo first settled the world. There was once a time when the Thoha Chozo were on good terms with the Mawkin.

Still, from both a Watsonian and Doylist perspective, I prefer that the Zebesian name comes from their takeover of Zebes, likely the latest conquest of many. From throughout the series, the Chozo are not seen to have been particularly active in galactic politics during the age of the Galactic Federation, mostly being relegated to advising more public figures. They are rarely mentioned after their demise, outside of their ruins. Therefor, with the Chozo mostly being dead and buried, their world conquered by the feared Space Pirates, the limelight would then be cast onto that world as the source of the Metroid threat, thus leading people to call them the rulers of that world. It’s not exactly how I will be situating things in my own rewrite of the manga, but it does fit better from a purely canonical perspective. Furthermore, from a Doylist perspective, there is evidence to posit this same position. (Special thanks to @sepublic for pointing this out) The internal data for the Zebesian sprite refers to them as Batta, the Japanese word for grasshopper/locust. While this can be attributed to their hopping behavior, it also fits to see them surrounding a planet, consuming its resources, and leaving barren rock behind, with Zebes being their latest, and most successful, operation. The manga displays them descending onto worlds, massacring populations, and enslaving the survivors. The origin of Samus Aran’s adoption into the Chozo comes from them massacring the population of a colony in order to steal its main export wholesale.

The individuals we see in the manga are spiteful, remorseless, and cruel, happy to kill a child for fun. They also show fear and cowardice in the face of armed resistance from Federation officials, and Mother Brain describes them as inclined to capitulate to the highest power present. This cruel, despotic leadership style appears to be an inherent trait to Zebesian culture. Furthermore, the Space Pirates are displayed as having genetically altered themselves to withstand Zebes’s environment very soon after securing the world, suggesting an avid fascination with genetic manipulation, a trait that gets taken to the N’th degree in the Prime series, along with a fascination of mechanical augmentation. From Meta and Proteus Ridley, to the grafted metal implants of the Tallon IV pirates, to the exoskeleton apparatus used by the Urtraghians, the Space Pirates as a whole seem to love cybernetically augmenting themselves and their underlings.

One of my favorite fan interpretations of the Zebesians comes from @dappercritter and the fanfiction piece “No Other”. Quite frankly, I have to include the paragraph wherein the description of the Zebesian race lies.

“The chimeric splice-junkies who had the nerve to call themselves ‘Zebesians’ she wasn’t surprised by. Those ‘settler colonists’-a term which they use to feign altruism and keep the GDF from assaulting their new base, had always been a thorn in Samus’s side since they tried to take her and the Chozo’s old home by force. Of course, they’d come back for more at some point, even if they deserved every other beatdown.”

The Zebesians are described as “chimeric splice-junkies”, a term which I absolutely love for its descriptiveness and color. These guys love to juice themselves up on whatever science team has cooked up. They love genetic modifications, cybernetic implants, and anything to make themselves stronger and give them an edge in combat. The main villain of this story, Ganzer, is the apotheosis of a Zebesian. He has replaced his lobster claws with metal claws, he has wings on his back, chainsaw blades grafted to his arms, a shoulder mounted cannon, a visor in place of his eyes, extra armor over his exoskeleton, and even a reptilian tail. Additionally, there is an explanation here for the name of these Zebesians. These galactic jerks are not just genocidal maniacs, they are something far worse: lawyers. They have lawyered their way into exploiting the Federation’s rules of engagement. After all, orbital bombardment on a colony is illegal. So, as any good lawyer would do, they have designated their most valuable planet as their residential colony world. Doesn’t matter that they breed Metroids, produce weapons, and store their fleets there, cuz that’s where the children grow up, at least on paper.

Furhermore, given their distinctly crustacean design, I can imagine that their “splice-junky” lifestyle comes into play during a specific recurring period of their life; molting. When a crustacean molts, the new shell is soft and malleable for a time, in which time they are extremely vulnerable. Defensive claws and stingers are effectively useless, leaving them defenseless until their body hardens. This time could be perfect for Zebesians to how in the infusion tank to get ‘roided up on whatever DNA infusions they choose/have chosen for them, or to have cybernetic implants grafted into them, where the shell will then solidify and seal the implant on. You can just imagine some excited Zebesian chittering about how they ordered the new model of targeting armature, lamenting that they have to wait until the next molt to get it installed. It honestly opens up some room for a bit of downtime in their culture which I think could be explored further some time.

Hope you all enjoyed this one! I may make a similar post for some of the other Space Pirate varieties. I do have some unique fanons for the Urtraghians that could be cool to share. Let me know if you have any suggestions or fanons of your own!