Post by samus on Dec 24, 2011 23:56:54 GMT -5
Cbox Name: Spartan291
Nicknames: Slate
Main Account: Nicholas
Who else do you play?: Nicholas, Hei, Slate
How did you find us?: blurp
Category: Canon
Name: Samus Aran
Alias: The Hunter, the Entrusted One
Age: 24
Ranking: Hero
Physical Appearance:
Standing at an intimidating 6' 7" in her Fusion Suit and 6' 3"out of it, Samus's build while wearing her armor is not what one might think of as suggestive of the average female human - big, muscled and by all appearances incredibly strong in a physical sense, her physical build inside of her suit shows much more of what she went through during her childhood and early teenage years under the care of the Chozo than her appearance outside of the armor suit may indicate.
It is only when Samus removes the helmet that her gender becomes readily apparent to most - with blue eyes and long blond hair, Samus's facial features are a mixture of what one might expect of a woman of her age, but at the same time much more emotionally worn than most people could possibly imagine. While her emotions show through just as they would any other person, her past clearly shows to a certain degree.
When not wearing her armor or civilian clothes, though, both of which tend to fit rather loosely around her due to Samus's preference in clothing, the Hunter almost always has her Zero Suit on, an integral part of her Fusion Suit and before that her Power Suit, allowing her to don her armor at a moment's notice. Form fitting and easy to move in, Samus's athletic figure is clearly apparent when wearing the suit.
Personality: Above all, a person of few words under most circumstances, speaking only when she feels it necessary. Samus is a pragmatist, and despite her tendencies to act without thinking back during her teen years and during her early career as a Federation Police officer she has become of much more tactically sound mind in the years since then, putting her intelligence rather than her raw strength to use rather than the other way around. Fiercely loyal to those she percieves as friends, Samus also has a very strong sense of justice - on numerous occasions this had led to her directly disobeying her orders when in service to the Federation in the past and ultimately her resignation from their ranks, and in the years since then she has taken on a number of jobs pro bono rather than let an injustice or subjugation of the innocent continue. Those who earn her wrath should not take it lightly - she is nothing if not tenacious, probably one of her greatest strengths as a Hunter.
That is not to say, however, that Samus is without flaws personality wise, or that she is the stone hard veteran many might believe she might be if they knew of her past. Hand in hand with her strong sense of right and wrong is a sense of compassion, something that has become something of a guiding force in her life alongside her experience - it was what led her to leave the Federation as an officer, liberate the Luminoth and spare the sole surviving Metroid hatchling on SR388 when her orders had specifically been to exterminate the species. It was also this compassion that led to her salvation on a number of occasions, a lesson Samus is not likely to forget anytime soon, especially after the destruction of SR388. Finally, there is the fact that Samus suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a problem and weakness that she has struggled with ever since the destruction of her childhood home, K2-L.
Powers/Abilities:
Chozo Birthright: Bio engineered into her by the Chozo themselves, the ancient race imparted Samus with a number of gifts from their own physiology upon adopting her, the first and foremost being the ability to survive much harsher environments than any other human possibly could, a necessity given that much of the area she grew up in from that point on was known for intense temperatures, mild radiation storms and toxic fumes. The integration of Chozo blood into her physiology also made her much faster, stronger, more agile and able to heal quicker than any normal human could possibly hope to, and when combined with the relatively harsh training that she was subjected to under the care of the Chozo Samus is nothing short of a highly trained super athlete, having been capable of dizzying acrobatics since her early teen years. In addition to the enhanced physical nature of her being Samus also was granted many of the mental abilities that the Chozo had long been revered for, including a heightened resistance to corruptive influences, mental attacks and even a limited form of the Chozo's Distant Sight, resulting in a form of subconscious precognition. Finally, among those many mental abilties that Samus acquired was the ability to control and harness Chozo technology, namely her original Power Suit, and after that was destroyed a second Pwer Suit recovered from the ruins of Zebes. As it was reverse engineered and built upon the remains of her second Power Suit, this ability extends to the control of her Fusion Suit as well. (Note: While only hypothetical, it is also quite possible that Samus received the longevity that the Chozo were also known for - a single Chozo could live for as long as several centuries, and despite having aged a number of years since being a teenager, Samus has shown absolutely no signs of breaking or slowing down).
Metroid DNA: A result of the serum used by the Federation in a successful attempt to save Samus from a parasitic X infestation, Samus acquired a number of Metroid like characteristics, both in strengths and weaknesses. As a result Samus can now absorb raw life energy to heal herself much as Metroids do, but given that she lacks many of the physiological aspects of true Metroids she is unable to actually hunt down sources of such energy - in other words she cannot absorb the energy from living, breathing bodies as Metroids can, but she is able to absorb it in its pure state, much as she could the X parasites. It would also appear that the vaccine made her even physically stronger than before, and she was able to hang off of ledges using only her fingers to support her full armored weight, a feat previously impossible without the use of the Power Grip upgrade.
Equipment:
Fusion Suit: Reverse engineered and built upon the remains of her Power Suit following the surgical removal of the armor's infected components in an attempt to save Samus from the X infestation, the Fusion Suit has weaker shielding and lacks the armor plating of Samus's old Power Suit. The fact that it is also not of Chozo design means that unlike the Power Suit, it cannot incorporate foreign technology at will - Samus must either absorb an ability through the absorbtion of the creature's life force using her Metroid abilities, or she must receive customized upgrades and/or weapons data to utilize new abilities. For all of its flaws, though, the Fusion Suit is not without benefits - despite the weaker shields and armor it has all of the offensive capabilities of Samus's previous Power Suit, and being less bulky also means Samus is a much more difficult target to hit than before. In addition to providing Samus with a multitude of weaponry, the Fusion Suit protects Samus from vacuum and toxic atmosphere, although it is still vulnerable to highly corrosive materials and extreme heat without the Varia Suit upgrade. After the integration of Metoid genes into her own DNA, Samus has also become extremely vulnerable to the cold without the Varia suit. Like the original Power Suits, the Fusion Suit is self repairing, using energy absorbed from its surrounding to effect said repairs and capable of using energy that Samus absorbs herself to do so.
Varia Suit: *CLICKY*
An upgrade to the Fusion Suit, increasing the original suit's shielding power as well as protecting Samus from extreme heat, cold and corrosive materials. Freezing and Heat based attacks will still be effective if strong enough, though.
Combat Visor: The default mode of Samus's HUD, the Combat Visor allows Samus to view her missile and energy reserves, selected and available beam weapons and visors and all enemies within her immediate surroundings via a built in radar system in her armor.
Scan Visor: While not combat oriented and hindering in that it disables all of Samus's weapon systems while in use, the Scan Visor is by far one of Samus's most effective tools in a fight. One of the few Chozo made components of Samus' armor to remain completely intact, the Scan Visor is capable of identifying enemies, their weak points and physiology, sometimes even their species and identifying marks of certain individuals all over the course of a several second long scan. The visor is also capable of scanning Samus's surroundings for anomalies, and is her most trustworthy tool in infiltation and data mining, able to remotely hack nearly any computer system in existance over the course of a few seconds. The Scan Visor is also equipped with a Translator Module, allowing Samus to scan and decrypt most alien and ancient languages at a glance.
Command Visor: A Federation issued technology, the Command Visor allows Samus to remotely pilot and control her Hunter class Gunship, and when piloted by an AI it allows her to issue simple commands such as designating targets for strafing runs or missile strikes. With the inclusion of Adam into the gunship's systems, the vessel has become more of a companion than a tool or a weapon to be used, capable of acting on its own should the situation require it.
Grapple Beam: Ironically a civilian technology adapted for Samus's own use, the Grapple Beam is capable of a number of feats, the first and foremost being that it grants the Hunter the ability to swing, hang or grab onto any energy based, metallic or magnetic object from a distance of several meters. How it is used from that point on is up to the Hunter - she can either use the technology for its original intended purpose (swinging from the anchoring point to clear otherwise impassable terrain), or Samus can use it to quite literally rip off armor, weapons or other defenses from the target in question, not an easy thing to avoid given her enhanced strength.
Arm Cannon: Samus's primary means of offensive action, attached to the right arm of the Fusion Suit. Despite the removal of much of the Chozo weapon's bulk, the cannon still retains all of its original functionality and power.
Power Beam: The default weapon and firing mode of Samus's Arm Cannon, the Power Beam is by far one of the most useful modes of fire despite its simplicity and apparent weakness at first glance. While far weaker than any other Beam or Missile weapon Samus can use shot for shot, firing small, rapid moving orbs of destructive energy, the Power Beam is capable of blistering rates of fire that easily rival most military grade automatic weapons, and it is extremely flexible in its use. It has also been shown capable of harming and destroying spectral entities otherwise immune to harm.
Charge Beam: A rather simple upgrade to the Arm Cannon that allows Samus to charge her shots before firing them - simple and weak, however, are entirely different things. While Samus cannot fire her Arm Cannon while charging a shot, the resultant attack is several times stronger than the original shot - even the relatively weak Power Beam, when charged, is more powerful than a Missile. Charging her weapon also opens up the ability to combine her beam weapons with her missiles for devastating combos, although she cannot perform them without the necessary upgrades and/or weapons data for the Arm Cannon.
Missiles: Relatively simple projectile weapons that explode upon impact with their targets, Samus can use her suit's visor systems to lock onto a target, allowing her missiles to home in on them.
Morph Ball: *CLICKY*
A curious ability that has stubbornly resisted multiple attempts by both the Federation and Space Pirates to reverse engineer, the Morph Ball allows Samus to contract into a tight sphere roughly a meter in diameter. Samus retains full awareness of her surroundings while in this form, as well as full control over her own motion, at least within the laws of physics - going up a slope will be harder than going down, and she will not be able to change direction in midair without being acted upon by an outside force.
Morph Ball Bombs: Small energy based explosives, Morph Ball Bombs can have any number of applications, from demolition work to mine laying, even going as far as being used by the clever Hunter to power certain deviced or to propel herself through mid air in Morph Ball form. While relatively weak on their own and unable to crack heavy armor with individual explosions, Samus can drop up to three in rapid succession, and as those numbers rise so too does their destructive potential.
Paralyzer: A small survival pistol that Samus often carries around when denied access to her Power Suit in the past, the Paralyzer is capable of little beyond killing small animals and stunning anything human sized or larger for more than a few seconds. Each shot much be charged for there to be any effect on a relatively large creature, resulting in Samus only being able to fire shots once every three to four seconds.
One among many of other gunships of the same class, this particular one was the vessel used by Samus during her investigation of Tallon IV, and as such survived the fate that her oldest gunship suffered upon returning from SR388 to Biologic's research station. A flying arsenal, the ship is equipped with 12 heavy duty plasma cannons arranged to fire at incoming enemies from any conceivable direction, and when combined with Samus's piloting skills it becomes a force to be reckoned with. Capable of interstellar travel, it is Samus's most used means of travel. The ship is self repairing in the same way that her original Power Suits were, but unlike the armor suits it takes much longer for the vessel to repair major damage - a major systems overload, for instance, can take weeks to recover from, and a large hull breach months unless aided. The ship itself can almost instantly repair Samus's suit, however, replenishing both energy and weapon reserves and acting as a safe haven in times of trouble.
Adam: The electronic reincarnation of Samus's former superior officer during her time in the Federation Police Force and having also served as her CO during multiple occasions after she became a freelance operative as a Hunter, Adam is most likely one of the only friends that the woman has, and having been literally spawned of the original Adam Malkovich's mind (in essence the exact same person), he remembers her just as well as she does him and is just as loyal. A tactical and strategic genius, Adam was one of the Federation's premier officers before his untimely death, and is extremely capable in planning out viable courses of action on even the smallest amount of information. Shrewd to the extreme, he is not one to divulge information easily, and is very detail oriented. While locked from the systems of the Federation issued ship he originally came to Samus in, such measures do not exist in Samus's gunship, and in being transferred over to it he has in many ways regained a corporeal existance, the ship's metal hull in place of what was once a flesh and blood body. While capable of piloting the ship himself in times of need, Adam will more often than not stay behind and act as a consultant or source of information for Samus while she is out in the field.
Psychological Flaws:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Caused by witnessing the death of her parents and the destruction of her home at the hands of Ridley and the Space Pirates, the incident left Samus as the sole survivor of the colony and has haunted her ever since. While she is usually unburdened by it after so many years, certain stimuli have been shown to bring the memories right back to the surface of Samus's mind, compromising her judgement and combat ability on numerous occasions. The strongest source of stimuli, however, is gone, or at least believed to be - having been supposedly killed for the final time during Samus's assault on SR388 to reclaim the Metroid Hatchling from the Space Pirates, Samus fought him only twice more, once as a clone and once as a manifestation of an X parasite's host. Whether or not he remains dead, though, is up to debate - the monster had hounded her for years, and had returned from worse.
A Conscience: As ironic as it may sound, it is precisely the trait that allowed Samus to build her reputation as a Hunter of renown that often compromises her ability to act as a Hunter - unlike many other bounty hunters, Samus will often lack the ruthless edge needed to combat many opponents unless they are clearly in the wrong, and many times she has avoided using lethal force in the presence of others, especially young children, likely a result of what she went through herself. While this has sometimes resulted in her capturing targets that many believed only stoppable through killing, it has also resulted in her being used as a unwitting pawn by many in the past and has allowed a few of her quarries to initially escape her.
Physical Flaws:
More or less human: Despite the enhanced abilities and strengths that have come with being entrusted with the gifts of the Chozo and the abilities of the Metroids, Samus is still for all intensive purposes human. She may heal quicker and have much stronger resistances to certain environmental hazards, but any wound that would be lethal to a normal human will most likely kill her as well, and she is still vulnerable to extremes in heat, cold and corrosive substances. Her suit isn't perfect either - if it takes enough hits the shielding will fail, and the suit will be incapable of repairing itself or the shields on the fly without absorbing external sources of energy.
Metroid DNA: While Samus did indeed gain many strengths that the Metroids possessed, she gained a crippling weakness from them as well - like the original creatures, Samus is now extremely vulnerable to the cold outside of her Fusion Suit, and the weakness reaches her even there without the Varia Suit upgrade. As the temperature begins to drop Samus's reactions and movement speed will dramatically begin to slow, and even in temperatures that many might simply describe as merely "chilly" she may very well be wracked with uncontrollable shivering. Cold based attacks, if not protected against, can very easily send her into shock with only a few glancing hits or one or two direct hits.
Other Flaws:
EXPLAIN: The Scan Visor, while a very versatile and powerful tool, is not all knowing - there have always been a handful of exceptions to its power here and there; languages that defied translation without a context to place them in, creatures and objects actually capable of jamming the visor's scans, and above all things that just plain could not be seen in the visible. Samus must have the target of her scan within her line of sight, and it must be visible to the naked eye. On top of that she must be relatively close for her visor to be able to acquire the target of the scan, with the maximum distance of a scannable object being roughly 100 meters away. Anything outside of that range will show up in her visor and she will be able to lock onto the object, but unable to actually scan it until she gets within range of it.
Precognition: Despite the power of the ability, Samus's precognition is subtle, more of a danger sense than anything else - unlike full blooded Chozo Samus lacks the ability to actually see into the future, instead gaining brief moments of insight into enemy movements or the urge to dodge or move in a certain direction only moments before an attack hits or starts heading her way, leaving her with precious few seconds to actually act on the information. On top of that knowing is not the same thing as doing - while it makes Samus incredibly difficult to hit and a very accurate, precise fighter at times, some attacks are simply undodgable.
Brief History: Samus began life as a young girl on the mining colony of K-2L with her parents, Rodney Aran and Virginia Aran. When she was three years old, her hometown was visited by the Chozo, an ancient bird-like race. They were in need of Afloraltite, which was mined on K-2L by the Federation colonists there. They came in peace, and Samus immediately found a kindred spirit in a Chozo elder named Old Bird. He taught Samus that befriending and understanding others can be used to solve problems. He then demonstrates this philosophy by showing Samus how to befriend Pyonchi, a rabbit-like creature; he remained Samus's companion through many years. Rodney Aran refused the Chozo the Afloraltite they sought, and the Chozo ship left K-2L empty-handed the day that they landed.
Unfortunately, a Space Pirate flagship was following the Chozo, hoping for a chance to steal any Afloraltite the Chozo might discover. It landed on the innocent colony and a raid ensued, led by none other than the dragon-like bioform Ridley. Samus, remembering what Old Bird had taught her, attempted to befriend Ridley in spite of his terrifying appearance. Because he felt humiliated and embarrassed in front of his subordinates, Ridley attempted to kill Samus. Virginia saw and got in the way of the strike, just as any mother would. She suffered the fatal blow. At the same time, Rodney infiltrated the Space Pirates' vessel and ignited the Afloraltiite the Space Pirates had stolen, thus sacrificing himself and destroying all of the Space Pirates. Ridley was mortally wounded but survived, feeding off of the corpses of the deceased colonists to accelerate his own healing. The only survivor of the attack was Samus.
Soon after the Chozo left, they received a distress signal from the colonists. Old Bird feared the worst, and ordered the ship to return to K-2L. Old Bird and Grey Voice discovered Samus and brought her to their home planet, Zebes. Mother Brain, a sentient organic robot created by the Chozo, predicted that Samus's frail body could not withstand harsh life in Zebes. The Chozo hoped to evade this problem by integrating Chozo DNA with hers and equipping her with the Power Suit, a bio-mechanical suit with the ability to assimilate many weapons and functions.
From that point on Old Bird and Gray Voice trained her in the ways of the Power Suit. They taught her how to use it and that she must use her power to protect others for the good of the galaxy. After a particularly difficult training session, in which Samus failed to destroy the targets she had been asked to destroy because she was not focusing properly, Gray Voice reminded her that if she wanted to survive and protect others, then she must utilize her abilities to the max; second or third place will never do.
Samus ran off to calm down; she watched an Iono Feria absorb moisture and ionize it to fly. Samus fed the Iono Feria and picked some flowers that the Iono Feria were near. When Gray Voice came to check on her, she showed him the flowers. When Gray Voice saw them, he freaked out and told Samus that the flowers were extremely poisonous Badger Clover. Gray Voice and Mother Brain realized that the Iono Feria carried the Badger Clover to Zebes, and Gray Voice ordered for the flowers and the Iono Feria to be burned. Samus objected to the needless shedding of blood, but Gray Voice insisted. The Iono Feria picked up weapons lying nearby and began to defend themselves. Samus took matters into her own hands and shot the weapons away from the Iono Feria. Samus managed to calm down the Iono Feria, and Mother Brain began damage control.
Samus went to a different room to calm down, and Old Bird came to talk to her. He told her that she was ready to leave Zebes and head out on her own. Samus was skeptical, but Old Bird silenced her doubts. Samus resolved then and there to live up to her predecessors' legacy and become the true "Protector of the Galaxy".
At an unspecified point after Samus left the Chozo, she joined up with the Federation Police. While she was in the Police, she was assigned several recon missions, all of which were likely designed to keep tabs on Space Pirate activity in her area. At one point, Samus was assigned to the planet Jigrad. She was monitoring Space Pirate activity in the area with her comrades Kreatz and Mauk. When Samus' comrades came to check on her at her post, she gave them the numbers of the Space Pirates. Kreatz took a look, and he identified the leader of the Space Pirates name to be Kani, but he was not able to ascertain what the Space Pirates were doing there. Samus told him that the Space Pirates had left a remnant of their forces; they were forcing the natives of the planet to build a "gaudy building" for no apparent reason.
Kreatz had just suggested to go and report back to headquarters when Samus noticed something; the Space Pirates had brought in a group of children to work on their "gaudy building". The Space Pirates brought in the group of children and "prepared everything as usual". "Preparing things as usual" entailed setting up a sensor at a certain height; if a child failed to trigger the sensor, they were dispatched. The adults working on the building pleaded for the Space Pirates to stop killing children, implying that the Space Pirates made that a grisly habit. Samus was surprised by such a cruel act, even coming from the Space Pirates. The Space Pirate began to taunt the little girl he was preparing to kill, saying that it was simply for amusement and telling the little girl to "scream and cry". The Space Pirates shot the girl, but their beams "shot back"; Samus had rushed down in her Power Suit and grabbed the girl. She placed the Space Pirates under arrest. The Space Pirate leader pointed out that Samus was seemingly alone and ordered his men to attack, beginning a firefight. Samus sent the civilians to safety, and began her fighting. Kreatz was worried about the consequences of disobeying orders, so he asked for advice from Mauk, whom had been silent up to that point. Mauk's answer was simply to join the conflict. That prompted Kreatz to join the conflict, as he enjoyed a firefight as well.
After the firefight, there was one Space Pirate left alive. When the Space Pirate happened to crawl underneath the sensor the girl had failed to trigger, Samus decided to kill the Space Pirate just as he was preparing to do to the little girl. The Space Pirate begged for mercy, but Samus remembered the murders on K-2L and was going to shoot him anyway. Just then, Samus heard the cries of the little girl; she had been keeping it in the whole time. The women of the colony comforted the little girl, telling her that it was over. Samus decided to not shed any more blood and placed the Space Pirate under arrest.
Afterwards, Chief Hardy, the commander in charge of Samus and her friends, reprimanded the three for disobeying orders. The little girl came to thank Samus for saving her, but Samus told the girl that she was the one who had saved her. Samus walked off hand in hand with the little girl, who told Samus her name; Damara.
Later, Adam Malkovich told Chief Hardy that while the Pirates were gone, now he had to deal with a piece of baggage; Samus Aran. Samus, however, had had enough - the incident on Jigrad had not been the first time she'd disobeyed orders to save lives, and decided to leave the Federation Police to follow her own path as a Hunter. Soon after this a distress call came from Zebes as the Pirates had found the Chozo enclave and begun to attack - Samus, not wasting a moment, rushed off to defend her home with Kreatz and Mauk right behind her, arriving too late to save most of the Chozo but in time to see what had transpired. Mother Brain and Gray Voice had apparently betrayed the Chozo after the Space Pirates, led by Ridley, had breached the planetary shield, siding with the invaders in exchange for positions of power - upon capturing Samus and her allies, however, events took a turn for the unexpected as they offered her a position as a Pirate commander alongside Ridley, Gray Voice and Mother Brain, the later two remembering the potential she had shown as a child.
Samus refused once it was revealed that all of the Chozo who weren't of worth had been hunted and killed, and things began to quickly spiral downhill once it was revealed to Ridley where the Chozo had found Samus - K2-L, the colony that had been destroyed years earlier. Ridley had not forgotted Samus but rather had not recognized her years later, and he used that to full effect once it became clear that she would not join them - in detailing the attack and how he'd survived by consuming the bodies of the deceased he triggered Samus's PSTD, and even then did not stop, driving the woman to beg to die rather than reliving the experience.
As Ridley was about to grant her wish Gray Voice intervened - having long since realized that the Pirates could not be defeated in a direct struggle he had been biding his time, waiting for an ideal chance to kill Ridley and Mother Brain - in rushing to Zebes on her own, however, Samus had foiled the plan, and in saving her he had tipped his hand too early. Knowing that he could not win the fight, Gray Voice simply settled for briefly incapacitating Ridley, donning his own ancient Chozo power armor and buying Kreatz and Mauk enough time to escape with Samus, turning on Mother Brain with the intent to at least kill her. Gray Voice failed, and was killed in the counter attack as Samus, Mauk and Kreatz fled back to Federation Space.
Some time after the Space Pirates had established a power base on Zebes, the Galactic Federation hired Samus Aran to destroy Mother Brain and the Metroids the Pirates were amassing. Returning to Zebes, Samus defeated Ridley and Kraid, obtaining a number of Chozo technologies during her explorations of the ruins that were once her home before gaining access to Tourian and the depths of the Space Pirate base. There, she defeated the Metroids and Mother Brain which activated a self destruct sequence as she died, a final act meant to kill Samus alongside her. Samus managed to escape from Tourian but was attacked by the Pirates in orbit around Zebes and her gunship was shot down, destroying both her first gunship and the original Power Suit given to her by Gray Voice and Old Bird in the process. This left her without the protection of her Power Suit with only her emergency pistol for defense and with no choice but to infiltrate the Pirates' Mother Ship in the hopes of discovering a way to escape the planet.
After evading the many Zebesians aboard the ship (the Space Pirate having taken the name and declared themselves the "native" inhabitants of the world), Samus eventually worked her way back into the ruins, deeper than ever before, reaching an area she had been only once as a child and dicovering an ancient test left by the Chozo. After defeating it, Samus gained a more powerful suit that enabled her the use of all items she had acquired on the planet. She then worked her way to the top of the Mother Ship, where she battled a mechanical version of Ridley known as Mecha Ridley. After destroying the machine, the ship's self destruct is activated, forcing Samus to steal a small Pirate vessel and flee the ship before is destroyed. As the mothership burned on the planet below Samus began the long trek back to Federation space once more.
Several months later and after receiving a signal from an unidentified distress beacon, Samus tracks it back to a vessel in orbit above Tallon IV and moves to intercept it. Upon her arrival, she discovers an abandoned Space Pirate Frigate, the Orpheon. As Samus explores the ghost ship, she learns that the Space Pirates performed many experiments there, most of which were performed on creatures native to Tallon IV with the intent of creating biological weapons. Eventually, Samus comes upon the Reactor Core of the frigate, where a Parasite Queen lurks. Samus defeats the mutated monster, but it falls down the core, causing the ship's power core to begin to overload in a chain reaction that would eventually destroy the ship. As Samus moved to escape the doomed frigate she sees her rival; Ridley, reborn as Meta Ridley, escapes the frigate to head to the planet's surface. Leaving the frigate herself in a dash to her gunship, Samus flies to the surface of Tallon IV to investigate further. During the escape, however, Samus's suit was damaged by a powerful electric discharge from an overloaded power conduit - while Samus herself was unharmed most of her suit's systems were overloaded themselves, reducing Samus to her most basic Power Suit and Power Beam.
As she began to explore the planet surface, she discovers several Chozo ruins, left behind by the planet's original inhabitants much as on Zebes - unlike that planet, however, there are next to no signs of struggle, with the world's Chozo seemingly having died for no reason at all. While there, she learns that the planet is slowly being corrupted by the impact of a large meteor, which had caused the destruction of the Chozo civilization on the planet. This meteor corrupted almost all of Tallon IV; the water supply, the natural wildlife, even some of the Chozo themselves - those who didn't die were driven to madness, leaving wraith like spectres behind who killed all that trespassed upon their homes.
As Samus began to probe deeper into the planet's mysteries she discovers that the Space Pirates are mining the mutagenic Phazon and attempting to use it for their own purposes, much as they had upon the frigate Orpheon. She happens upon their research labs within Phendrana Drifts at the Glacier One outpost, discovering that the Space Pirates managed to take some of the Metroids from Zebes and were experimenting on them. While she was in the labs, she learns of Project Titan. Later, she is forced to defeat its result; Thardus, a living, sentient mass of Phazon ore. She also interrupts their mining at the Phazon Mines, and defeats their most powerful experiment, the Omega Pirate, corrupting her Power Suit with Phazon as the deceased creature falls on her - ironically, rather than weakening her it dramatically boosts the performance of her Power Suit much as it had the Pirate, turning it into the Phazon Suit and granting her immunity against most forms of Phazon.
Eventually Samus learned that the source of the corruption was inside the Impact Crater. The crater had been sealed by twelve Chozo Artifacts at the Artifact Temple by the Chozo before their corruption - the Pirates, seeking to reach the source of the corruption and harness it for their own purposes, had long sought these artifacts only to be repulsed by many of the Chozo Ghosts in the ruins, with what few they had managed to acquire being stolen back by the wraiths. Amongst their lore, she reads that the Chozo not only foresaw the coming of a Worm, but of the Entrusted One - a prophecy that points to Samus herself.
Samus gathered the twelve Chozo Artifacts and opened the Impact Crater, confronting and defeating Meta Ridley in the process. Inside the crater she encountered the source of Phazon on the planet, the Metroid Prime - a highly mutated Metroid corrupted by the original Phazon seed within the meteor that had gained the ability to produce Phazon from its own body. After the creature is defeated, however, it grabs hold of Samus' Phazon Suit, attempting to absorb it but destabilizes before it can completely do so, nevertheless robbing Samus of the suit in the process. Samus departs Tallon IV, and leaves for another assignment. However, the Metroid Prime survived, as Dark Samus - a bastadized amalgam of the creature's original core, the remains of the Phazon Suit and Samus's own DNA.
Nearly a year after Samus's investigation of Tallon IV the disappearance of the G.F.S. Tyr prompts the Galactic Federation to hire Samus Aran to locate the frigate and offer assistance of needed. Upon her arrival at the planet Aether, the last known position of the Tyr, her ship is damaged by magnetic storms and she is stranded on the surface while the ship repairs itself. Leaving her ship to tend to its wounds, Samus discovers that the entire crew of the Tyr has been killed by hordes of insectile creatures called Splinters, and that their bodies have become hosts for an unknown parasitic biomass. As she further explored Aether, she happens upon the Great Temple and fights the Alpha Splinter there, acquiring the Energy Transfer Module after defeating it. Afterwards, she meets U-Mos, the Sentinel of Aether and the leader of the Luminoth, who was protecting the final Energy Controller in the Great Temple. He explains that the impact of a cosmic object on the planet caused a division, and that as a result, Aether exists in a state of unstable transdimensional flux, meaning that the world's position in space could collapse at any time. He beseeches her to help the Luminoth stave off their enemy created from that impact, the Ing, using the Energy Transfer Module that bonded with her suit. She accepts, and sets out to collect the planetary energy stolen by the Ing from the Agon, Torvus, and Sanctuary regions to save the Luminoth.
During her mission, she encounters her Phazon-powered doppelganger Dark Samus, Metroid Prime reborn using DNA from Samus and the structure of her Phazon suit, and engages her in combat multiple times. She also dismantles several Space Pirate operations on the planet, the creatures having discovered a secondary source of Phazon in Dark Aether and quickly moving to claim it as their own. She finally makes her way to the top of the dark Sky Temple and kills the Emperor Ing, siphoning the last of the stolen planetary energy. This causes Dark Aether to collapse. As she escapes, she encounters Dark Samus again. She engages her in combat, presumably destroying her, and escapes back to Light Aether just as the planet's dark mirror image collapses. After the incident, the G.F.S. Anhur comes to the planet and helps the Luminoth rebuild. The crew of the Anhur finds Phazon left behind by the Space Pirates and brings it back with them to Federation Space.
About six months after the events that occurred on the planet Aether, Samus Aran is again issued an assignment by the Galactic Federation: she is to travel to the GFS Olympus, the flagship of the Galactic Federation, for a scheduled meeting with Fleet Admiral Castor Dane and three other hunters - Rundas, an arrogant, ice-wielding hunter; Ghor, a technically brilliant and kind hunter; and Gandrayda, a playful, flexible, and formidable shape-shifter. The four hunters are briefed concerning a digital Phazon virus that had spread to several supercomputers dubbed Aurora Units. During the hunters' briefing, a Space Pirate raid on the Olympus is launched via several Space Pirate Boarding Pods. The Space Pirates then launch an attack on the planet being orbited by the Olymupus, Norion, which is one of the most important military planets in the entire Galactic Federation. Samus, Rundas, Ghor, Gandrayda, and the Galactic Federation give chase.
On the surface of Norion, the hunters and the Federation realize that the Space Pirates have disabled several power conduits that are needed for the digital interfaces to work properly. Aurora Unit 242 suddenly indicates that a Phazon-like meteor, later revealed to be a Leviathan, is about to crash into the planet and will infect Norion in its entirety with Phazon if it is not stopped. Samus and the hunters are dispatched to restore energy to the downed power conduits, which in turn will power an energy cannon that can be used to destroy the meteor. While Samus is engaged in this task, she encounters Meta Ridley, once again resurrected by the Space Pirates. She defeats him once again and restores power to all the generators.
Once the hunters arrive at the Energy Cannon's controls, they encounter the revived Dark Samus. Dark Samus utilizes her natural ability to generate Phazon and creates a Phazon blast that renders the four hunters unconscious. Samus, however, is able to remain awake long enough to fire the Energy Cannon, destroying the meteor.
One month later, Samus awakens and is informed by a trooper that the other three hunters woke up several weeks ago. The hunters were producing Phazon on their own as a result of Dark Samus' attack, but the Federation's medical team noticed no ill-effects, so they outfitted the hunters with PED Suits. The three hunters had been sent to Bryyo, Elysia, and the Pirate Homeworld to destroy Leviathans that had impacted there. Communications with the hunters were lost shortly thereafter, and so Samus is issued a PED Suit similar in nature and appearance to those being worn by several squads of Federation Marines and is issued a new assignment: find and destroy the Leviathans and, if possible, discover what happened to the other hunters.
During the mission, Samus discovers that the hunters each show signs of being taken over by Phazon Corruption due to using the PED suits. Each of the other hunters attacks Samus when she encounters them, and Samus is forced to terminate each one. While on the Pirate Homeworld, Samus learns that the hunters had been completely consumed by Phazon and were under the dominion of Dark Samus. Dark Samus had even placed them in command of the Space Pirate forces on each planet. After destroying each Leviathan, Samus's body becomes controlled more and more by her natural Phazon; it becomes increasingly difficult to stay in control while in Hypermode.
After Samus destroys each Leviathan, Aurora Unit 242 announces the discovery of a single planet that is the source of all Phazon, called Phaaze, and that the Phazon levels there are on the rise. Dark Samus has been controlling it using an Aurora Unit, Aurora Unit 313, stolen from the GFS Valhalla. Samus explores the now-derelict Valhalla and discovers a means of travel to Phaaze: the Leviathans are capable of creating wormholes in order to reach their destinations, and the Space Pirates possess a Leviathan rigged to fly like a ship. While the Federation fleet distracts Space Pirate forces, Samus boards the Leviathan vessel and flies to Phaaze.
When Samus arrives at Phaaze and steps out of her gunship, the sheer amount of Phazon present in her body causes her Phazon corruption to rise to one-hundred percent. Her ship is unable to recognize her as the owner, so passage on the gunship is unobtainable until she rids her body of the Phazon contained in it. She is forced to vent her energy tanks and enter permanent Hypermode, becoming more and more saturated with Phazon the longer she stays on Phaaze.
Once Samus arrives at the Sanctum of the Phazon core, she encounters Dark Samus once again and engages her in battle. Dark Samus is forced to merge with the stolen Aurora Unit 313 as a last resort. With her Phazon levels ever rising, Samus destroys the corrupted supercomputer. Dark Samus emerges from the downed Aurora Unit and makes one last gesture towards Samus before vanishing into a gas of Phazon, presumably destroyed for the final time as the Phazon Seed within Samus decays and dissapates, removing the Hunter's corruption.
Samus quickly flees the unstable planet. Her objective is completed, but at a great cost; many Federation troopers and ships were lost, the lives of each of the other hunters, and great mental distress to Samus herself. With Phaaze eliminated, the threat of Phazon Corruption disappears. Samus flies off in search of a new target, and possibly a new mission, but she is followed by a mysterious ship.
Some time after neutralizing the threat Phazon posed, Samus is ordered to eradicate the entire Metroid population on the planet of SR388. After battling through the numerous Metroids and other hostile creatures, she arrives in the Queen Metroid's lair and destroys the few remaining Metroids found in it. After a fierce battle with the Queen Metroid, Samus emerges victorious and completes her main objective. However, after heading towards her gunship to leave SR388, a Metroid, the last of its kind, hatches from an egg. Instead of terminating the infant Metroid, Samus takes it to the Ceres Space Colony for the Galactic Federation to conduct research on the specimen.
Shortly after departing from the Ceres Space Colony, Samus receives a distress signal indicating that the colony had come under attack by Space Pirates. When she returns to the station, she finds the scientists dead and the Metroid missing. After further exploration into Ceres, Samus encounters Ridley, who is holding the Metroid. She is unable to defeat Ridley before he flees with the Metroid and activates the station's self-destruct. Samus follows the Pirates to a rebuilt Zebes to finish them off and retrieve the Hatchling.
On Zebes, Samus encounters several enemies she has encountered in the past, such as Kraid. New additions are also added to the Pirate forces. After defeating Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon, and Ridley, Samus gains access to a rebuilt and pulchritudinous Tourian where she discovers a host of Metroids. Deeper within the lair, she confronts the Metroid Hatchling, which has grown to a massive size; it appears to be in its adult stage. The Metroid feeds on Samus's Energy Tanks and leaves her with a single unit of energy before flying off.
Once she recoveres, Samus works her way to Mother Brain. Though she manages to destroy Mother's containment vessel, Mother rises up from the ground with a mechanical body. Among her many attacks, Mother fires an energy beam that is powerful enough to immobilize Samus. However, before Mother is able to kill Samus, the Hatchling attacks, draining Mother Brain's energy. The Hatchling then begins replenishing Samus's energy, even as it is assaulted by Mother Brain. After her energy is restored, the Metroid again tries to attack Mother Brain, but it is killed in the process. Samus discovers that as a result of the Hatchling's restoration of her healt, all of her beam weapons are replaced by the far more powerful Hyper Beam. She then uses her new-found power to destroy Mother Brain. Immediately after Mother Brain is defeated, a self-destruct sequence is activated. Samus escapes, and the entire planet is destroyed in the explosion.
A few months after her return from Zebes, Samus, who is no longer under orders, receives a distress signal known as "Baby's Cry," which is emanating from a space station known as the Bottle Ship, and takes it upon herself to respond and investigate the facility. Shortly after landing, she comes into contact with the Galactic Federation 07th Platoon, led by her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich. Although she is initially left in the dark about the Federation's motives (Anthony Higgs is the only person who treats her amicably), she cooperates with the platoon to take down the Brug Mass. Adam allows Samus to aid the Federation if she will accept his one condition; she must obey orders from him. Samus accepts, and begins her mission.
Her directives take her to three sectors, each with a different simulated environment: Sector 1, the Biosphere (a lush, jungle area), Sector 2, the Cryosphere (a frozen wasteland), and Sector 3, the Pyrosphere (a deadly expanse of lava, rock, and volcanic structures). She faces many familiar enemies during her stay, along with a plethora of new and bizarre creations, including Nightmare and the RB176 Ferrocrusher. She eventually learns from Madeline Bergman that a rogue group of Federation agents has been, against Federation protocol, genetically modifying the life-forms aboard the ship for use as bioweapons. The group in charge also dispatched an assassin to eliminate anyone who learns this, and this assassin is in the platoon. Much to her surprise, Samus also learns that Mother Brain's AI was used to create an android that could control Metroids, long thought to have been extinguished, and that DNA from her Power Suit was even used to unwittingly clone Ridley.
Her desire to stop the rogue agent and resolve the crisis leads Samus to the Bioweapon Research Center, an off-shoot of the Biosphere, where she meets the real Madeline Bergman and discovers that she and other scientists accidentally created a Queen Metroid. After a long and difficult battle (made worse with the knowledge that Adam sacrificed himself to destroy Sector Zero), Samus destroys the Queen, shuts down the rebellious android, and leaves the Bottle Ship, which has since been marked by the Federation for destruction. She returns before the Federation destroys the ship in order to retrieve Adam's helmet, but her task is hindered by the appearance of another enemy from her past, Phantoon. With the specter's defeat, a self-destruct sequence is activated. Samus races to and climbs into her Gunship, clad in her Zero Suit. As she places Adam's helmet in the seat beside her, Samus reflects on her experiences on the Bottle Ship and narrowly escapes her demise.
Some time after her return from the Bottle Ship, Samus is tasked with guarding a group of Biologic Space Laboratories Research Station employees who are studying the life-forms of SR388 now that the planet is devoid of Metroids. While exploring an underground cavern, Samus encounters and dispatches a Hornoad with a Missile before being infected by an unknown, amorphous organism known as an X Parasite. As Samus begins to return to the B.S.L Research Station, the X infects her central nervous system, causing her to lose consciousness and control of her ship, which crashes into a nearby asteroid belt after ejecting Samus via an escape pod. B.S.L. employees find the pod and transport it to Galactic Federation headquarters, during which time the X multiplies inside Samus's body, leaving her in critical condition. Infected portions of Samus's suit are surgically removed, and a vaccine is developed from the DNA of the Metroid Hatchling to rid Samus of the X inside her body. The vaccine grants Samus the ability to absorb the X to regain health and weapons while also imparting the Metroids' weakness to cold upon her (an unexpected side effect). Once she recovers, Samus, clad in the Fusion Suit, is given a new ship (with a built-in computer through which she receives orders) and is sent back to B.S.L. Research Station to investigate after it is marred by a large explosion.
Returning to the station, Samus discovers a massacre. Every living creature aboard the station has been killed and infected by the very same parasite that had very nearly killed her, some arriving within research specimens her own team had captured on the surface of SR388, and most troublesome of all was the fate of the infected remains of her Power Suit, which had also been brought to the station - still infected with X parasites, the remains of the suit had reformed into a likeness of Samus dubbed the SA-X, a entity with all of Samus's powers, experience and technology in her most powerful state, with the earlier explosions caused by a Power Bomb used to escape the Quarantine Bay and release the other X Parasites.
As Samus delved deeper into the station, working agains the clock to halt the spread and mulitplication of the X in a losing battle She eventually comes across a small group of survivors up on the station's Habitation Deck - several creatures that Samus knew as native to Zebes, the last of their kind and the only other organisms on the station to remain uninfected by the X. Releasing them from lockdown, Samus clears the way for them to reach her ship safely before continuing her fight agains the X, encountering a rogue security mech that has been infected over the course of the explorations, as well as the SA-X - without the penetrating power of her original plasma beam Samus is forced to flee from the conflicts, with the creature hunting her relentlessly.
After several more skirmishes against X hosts across a number of habitats, one of which involving a failed attempt by the X to destroy the station (an act that makes little initial sense to Samus given the species' drive for self preservation and replication), the Hunter tracks the security mech to the station's nocturnal habitats and defeats it once and for all, obtaining the plasma and wave beams in the process. During her explorations, however, Samus makes a startling discovery, one that explains the X's attempts to destroy the station and themselves along with it - just as aboard the Bottle Ship the Federation has begun a program to breed Metroids. The X, having absorbed the knowledge of the program from the infected researchers, had viewed the last surviving group of their natural predators as a grave threat to their species as a whole, and had moved to eliminate said threat despite the risk to the X population aboard the station. While in the Metroid Hatchery Samus makes a second startling revelation - the SA-X that had been hunting her all over the station had mulitplied no fewer than ten times, leaving a grand total of eleven of the monstrosities. As she debated with the AI aboard her ship who she had dubbed "Adam" due to the likeness between it and her old commander their conversation was suddenly cut short as one of the SA-X attacked the Hatchery, which was forcibly ejected into space and destroyed to maintain quarantine of the labs - Samus, warned by Adam, barely managed to escape, encountering a manifestation of Ridley, an X parasite that had infected the corpse of the clone from the Bottle Ship, brought to the Biologic Station for study.
Making her way to another one of the station's command rooms, Samus resumed her debate with the AI only to learn that her orders from the Federation had been rescinded - in fact, they had ordered her to stand down, having outright denied her access to several key weapons and upgrades in the hopes that she would continue to avoid the SA-X until Federation vessels could arrive and capture the creature for study, and upon learning that Samus had absorbed many of the abilities they had denied her from X parasites had ordered the ship's AI to detain her. Enraged by the foolishness of the Federation and fully aware of what would happen should the X ever leave the station or the surface of SR388, the argument between her and the ship AI reached a climax when Samus inadvertantly referred to the AI as "Adam" - a fortuitus mistake as luck would have it, as the similarities between the AI and her old commander were not a coincidence. Having been newly made from Adam Malkovich's mind, many of the memories of his past life had remained locked in something akin to a state of amnesia until Samus had referred to him by name - after having done so, many of the memories, along with much of his sense of judgement, returned.
Reaching the same conclusion that Samus had, Adam unlocked the doors to the room, ordering Samus to reach the station's command deck and program in a course for SR388, along with the station's self destruct alongside it - while it wouldn't destroy the planet it would devestate the biosphere, boiling the atmosphere and water and killing most of the planet's X infestation - those which did survive would soon perish without hosts, or overhunt their food sources to extinction. Acting as ordered, Samus made her way to her objective only to encounter the very creature responsible for the release of the X - the SA-X. Confronting her doppleganger in a final showdown, Samus defeated it after a long and grueling battle that left them both exhausted - the SA-X, reduced to its natural form of a standard Core X, fled from the fight before Samus could absorb it.
Tired from the fight but not particularly worse for wear, Samus made her way to the control room, laying in the course given to her by Adam and activating the station's self destruct, rushing back to the docking bays only to find them in ruins, with her ship gone. While it had been intended to keep that very thing from happening, several Metroid hatchlings had escaped the destruction of the Metroid Hatchery, making their way to the SR388 simulated environments where they quickly matured - in the place of where Samus's ship once was there was now a fully grown Omega Metroid. Engaging the creature in combat, Samus quickly fell back under the adult Metroid's onslaught, both exhausted from her previous fight with the SA-X and without the Ice Beam needed to actually cause harm to the creature. As Samus lay stunned and vulnerable to a final blow from the creature with the clock ticking down to the station's obliteration, the SA-X Samus had defeated earlier made a return - while even weaker from the earlier fight than Samus was, the parasite had sensed its natural enemy in the docking bay and made its way there to confront it. Resuming Samus's form, the SA-X attacked the Omega Metroid, repelling the creature with its Ice Beam for a brief moment before being defeated in a single strike, reduced to its natural form once more.
Samus, however, had been given more than enough time to at least somewhat recover, and in a desperate move she moved to absorb the SA-X - the creature, unable to flee after being soundly defeated twice in succession, was this time successfully absorbed. Regaining her Ice Beam, Samus made quick work of the Omega Metroid, destroying the creature but finding herself with nowhere to go afterwards. Seemingly trapped on the station, Samus could do little but watch as the planet below loomed closer and closer, only to have her ship seemingly pilot itself into the hangar bay of its own free will - not questioning a way out at the time, Samus dashed for the ship, boarding it and piloting it away from the station just before it entered SR388's atmosphere and reaching minimum safe distance before it detonated, destroying the planet's ecosystem along with it. Left to rest and recuperate, it was only when given time to think that Samus realized that the ship was not capable of piloting itself - the Federation had placed several electronic shackles within the systems to prevent the AI from controlling it. When she asked Adam how he had managed to leave the hanger to avoid destruction at the hands of the Omega Metroid as well as return for her, Adam merely replied that he had "asked for a hand" - the creatures that Samus had guided back to her ship earlier had, under Adam's direction, piloted the ship in his stead.
Tired, beaten and weary but alive from what had quite possibly been the toughest fights of her life, Samus left the remains of SR388, unknowing of what the future would bring.
Nicknames: Slate
Main Account: Nicholas
Who else do you play?: Nicholas, Hei, Slate
How did you find us?: blurp
Category: Canon
Name: Samus Aran
Alias: The Hunter, the Entrusted One
Age: 24
Ranking: Hero
Physical Appearance:
Standing at an intimidating 6' 7" in her Fusion Suit and 6' 3"out of it, Samus's build while wearing her armor is not what one might think of as suggestive of the average female human - big, muscled and by all appearances incredibly strong in a physical sense, her physical build inside of her suit shows much more of what she went through during her childhood and early teenage years under the care of the Chozo than her appearance outside of the armor suit may indicate.
It is only when Samus removes the helmet that her gender becomes readily apparent to most - with blue eyes and long blond hair, Samus's facial features are a mixture of what one might expect of a woman of her age, but at the same time much more emotionally worn than most people could possibly imagine. While her emotions show through just as they would any other person, her past clearly shows to a certain degree.
When not wearing her armor or civilian clothes, though, both of which tend to fit rather loosely around her due to Samus's preference in clothing, the Hunter almost always has her Zero Suit on, an integral part of her Fusion Suit and before that her Power Suit, allowing her to don her armor at a moment's notice. Form fitting and easy to move in, Samus's athletic figure is clearly apparent when wearing the suit.
Personality: Above all, a person of few words under most circumstances, speaking only when she feels it necessary. Samus is a pragmatist, and despite her tendencies to act without thinking back during her teen years and during her early career as a Federation Police officer she has become of much more tactically sound mind in the years since then, putting her intelligence rather than her raw strength to use rather than the other way around. Fiercely loyal to those she percieves as friends, Samus also has a very strong sense of justice - on numerous occasions this had led to her directly disobeying her orders when in service to the Federation in the past and ultimately her resignation from their ranks, and in the years since then she has taken on a number of jobs pro bono rather than let an injustice or subjugation of the innocent continue. Those who earn her wrath should not take it lightly - she is nothing if not tenacious, probably one of her greatest strengths as a Hunter.
That is not to say, however, that Samus is without flaws personality wise, or that she is the stone hard veteran many might believe she might be if they knew of her past. Hand in hand with her strong sense of right and wrong is a sense of compassion, something that has become something of a guiding force in her life alongside her experience - it was what led her to leave the Federation as an officer, liberate the Luminoth and spare the sole surviving Metroid hatchling on SR388 when her orders had specifically been to exterminate the species. It was also this compassion that led to her salvation on a number of occasions, a lesson Samus is not likely to forget anytime soon, especially after the destruction of SR388. Finally, there is the fact that Samus suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a problem and weakness that she has struggled with ever since the destruction of her childhood home, K2-L.
Powers/Abilities:
Chozo Birthright: Bio engineered into her by the Chozo themselves, the ancient race imparted Samus with a number of gifts from their own physiology upon adopting her, the first and foremost being the ability to survive much harsher environments than any other human possibly could, a necessity given that much of the area she grew up in from that point on was known for intense temperatures, mild radiation storms and toxic fumes. The integration of Chozo blood into her physiology also made her much faster, stronger, more agile and able to heal quicker than any normal human could possibly hope to, and when combined with the relatively harsh training that she was subjected to under the care of the Chozo Samus is nothing short of a highly trained super athlete, having been capable of dizzying acrobatics since her early teen years. In addition to the enhanced physical nature of her being Samus also was granted many of the mental abilities that the Chozo had long been revered for, including a heightened resistance to corruptive influences, mental attacks and even a limited form of the Chozo's Distant Sight, resulting in a form of subconscious precognition. Finally, among those many mental abilties that Samus acquired was the ability to control and harness Chozo technology, namely her original Power Suit, and after that was destroyed a second Pwer Suit recovered from the ruins of Zebes. As it was reverse engineered and built upon the remains of her second Power Suit, this ability extends to the control of her Fusion Suit as well. (Note: While only hypothetical, it is also quite possible that Samus received the longevity that the Chozo were also known for - a single Chozo could live for as long as several centuries, and despite having aged a number of years since being a teenager, Samus has shown absolutely no signs of breaking or slowing down).
Metroid DNA: A result of the serum used by the Federation in a successful attempt to save Samus from a parasitic X infestation, Samus acquired a number of Metroid like characteristics, both in strengths and weaknesses. As a result Samus can now absorb raw life energy to heal herself much as Metroids do, but given that she lacks many of the physiological aspects of true Metroids she is unable to actually hunt down sources of such energy - in other words she cannot absorb the energy from living, breathing bodies as Metroids can, but she is able to absorb it in its pure state, much as she could the X parasites. It would also appear that the vaccine made her even physically stronger than before, and she was able to hang off of ledges using only her fingers to support her full armored weight, a feat previously impossible without the use of the Power Grip upgrade.
Equipment:
Fusion Suit:
Fusion Suit: Reverse engineered and built upon the remains of her Power Suit following the surgical removal of the armor's infected components in an attempt to save Samus from the X infestation, the Fusion Suit has weaker shielding and lacks the armor plating of Samus's old Power Suit. The fact that it is also not of Chozo design means that unlike the Power Suit, it cannot incorporate foreign technology at will - Samus must either absorb an ability through the absorbtion of the creature's life force using her Metroid abilities, or she must receive customized upgrades and/or weapons data to utilize new abilities. For all of its flaws, though, the Fusion Suit is not without benefits - despite the weaker shields and armor it has all of the offensive capabilities of Samus's previous Power Suit, and being less bulky also means Samus is a much more difficult target to hit than before. In addition to providing Samus with a multitude of weaponry, the Fusion Suit protects Samus from vacuum and toxic atmosphere, although it is still vulnerable to highly corrosive materials and extreme heat without the Varia Suit upgrade. After the integration of Metoid genes into her own DNA, Samus has also become extremely vulnerable to the cold without the Varia suit. Like the original Power Suits, the Fusion Suit is self repairing, using energy absorbed from its surrounding to effect said repairs and capable of using energy that Samus absorbs herself to do so.
Varia Suit: *CLICKY*
An upgrade to the Fusion Suit, increasing the original suit's shielding power as well as protecting Samus from extreme heat, cold and corrosive materials. Freezing and Heat based attacks will still be effective if strong enough, though.
Combat Visor: The default mode of Samus's HUD, the Combat Visor allows Samus to view her missile and energy reserves, selected and available beam weapons and visors and all enemies within her immediate surroundings via a built in radar system in her armor.
Scan Visor: While not combat oriented and hindering in that it disables all of Samus's weapon systems while in use, the Scan Visor is by far one of Samus's most effective tools in a fight. One of the few Chozo made components of Samus' armor to remain completely intact, the Scan Visor is capable of identifying enemies, their weak points and physiology, sometimes even their species and identifying marks of certain individuals all over the course of a several second long scan. The visor is also capable of scanning Samus's surroundings for anomalies, and is her most trustworthy tool in infiltation and data mining, able to remotely hack nearly any computer system in existance over the course of a few seconds. The Scan Visor is also equipped with a Translator Module, allowing Samus to scan and decrypt most alien and ancient languages at a glance.
Command Visor: A Federation issued technology, the Command Visor allows Samus to remotely pilot and control her Hunter class Gunship, and when piloted by an AI it allows her to issue simple commands such as designating targets for strafing runs or missile strikes. With the inclusion of Adam into the gunship's systems, the vessel has become more of a companion than a tool or a weapon to be used, capable of acting on its own should the situation require it.
Grapple Beam: Ironically a civilian technology adapted for Samus's own use, the Grapple Beam is capable of a number of feats, the first and foremost being that it grants the Hunter the ability to swing, hang or grab onto any energy based, metallic or magnetic object from a distance of several meters. How it is used from that point on is up to the Hunter - she can either use the technology for its original intended purpose (swinging from the anchoring point to clear otherwise impassable terrain), or Samus can use it to quite literally rip off armor, weapons or other defenses from the target in question, not an easy thing to avoid given her enhanced strength.
Arm Cannon: Samus's primary means of offensive action, attached to the right arm of the Fusion Suit. Despite the removal of much of the Chozo weapon's bulk, the cannon still retains all of its original functionality and power.
Power Beam: The default weapon and firing mode of Samus's Arm Cannon, the Power Beam is by far one of the most useful modes of fire despite its simplicity and apparent weakness at first glance. While far weaker than any other Beam or Missile weapon Samus can use shot for shot, firing small, rapid moving orbs of destructive energy, the Power Beam is capable of blistering rates of fire that easily rival most military grade automatic weapons, and it is extremely flexible in its use. It has also been shown capable of harming and destroying spectral entities otherwise immune to harm.
Charge Beam: A rather simple upgrade to the Arm Cannon that allows Samus to charge her shots before firing them - simple and weak, however, are entirely different things. While Samus cannot fire her Arm Cannon while charging a shot, the resultant attack is several times stronger than the original shot - even the relatively weak Power Beam, when charged, is more powerful than a Missile. Charging her weapon also opens up the ability to combine her beam weapons with her missiles for devastating combos, although she cannot perform them without the necessary upgrades and/or weapons data for the Arm Cannon.
Missiles: Relatively simple projectile weapons that explode upon impact with their targets, Samus can use her suit's visor systems to lock onto a target, allowing her missiles to home in on them.
Morph Ball: *CLICKY*
A curious ability that has stubbornly resisted multiple attempts by both the Federation and Space Pirates to reverse engineer, the Morph Ball allows Samus to contract into a tight sphere roughly a meter in diameter. Samus retains full awareness of her surroundings while in this form, as well as full control over her own motion, at least within the laws of physics - going up a slope will be harder than going down, and she will not be able to change direction in midair without being acted upon by an outside force.
Morph Ball Bombs: Small energy based explosives, Morph Ball Bombs can have any number of applications, from demolition work to mine laying, even going as far as being used by the clever Hunter to power certain deviced or to propel herself through mid air in Morph Ball form. While relatively weak on their own and unable to crack heavy armor with individual explosions, Samus can drop up to three in rapid succession, and as those numbers rise so too does their destructive potential.
Paralyzer: A small survival pistol that Samus often carries around when denied access to her Power Suit in the past, the Paralyzer is capable of little beyond killing small animals and stunning anything human sized or larger for more than a few seconds. Each shot much be charged for there to be any effect on a relatively large creature, resulting in Samus only being able to fire shots once every three to four seconds.
Hunter-class Gunship:
One among many of other gunships of the same class, this particular one was the vessel used by Samus during her investigation of Tallon IV, and as such survived the fate that her oldest gunship suffered upon returning from SR388 to Biologic's research station. A flying arsenal, the ship is equipped with 12 heavy duty plasma cannons arranged to fire at incoming enemies from any conceivable direction, and when combined with Samus's piloting skills it becomes a force to be reckoned with. Capable of interstellar travel, it is Samus's most used means of travel. The ship is self repairing in the same way that her original Power Suits were, but unlike the armor suits it takes much longer for the vessel to repair major damage - a major systems overload, for instance, can take weeks to recover from, and a large hull breach months unless aided. The ship itself can almost instantly repair Samus's suit, however, replenishing both energy and weapon reserves and acting as a safe haven in times of trouble.
Adam: The electronic reincarnation of Samus's former superior officer during her time in the Federation Police Force and having also served as her CO during multiple occasions after she became a freelance operative as a Hunter, Adam is most likely one of the only friends that the woman has, and having been literally spawned of the original Adam Malkovich's mind (in essence the exact same person), he remembers her just as well as she does him and is just as loyal. A tactical and strategic genius, Adam was one of the Federation's premier officers before his untimely death, and is extremely capable in planning out viable courses of action on even the smallest amount of information. Shrewd to the extreme, he is not one to divulge information easily, and is very detail oriented. While locked from the systems of the Federation issued ship he originally came to Samus in, such measures do not exist in Samus's gunship, and in being transferred over to it he has in many ways regained a corporeal existance, the ship's metal hull in place of what was once a flesh and blood body. While capable of piloting the ship himself in times of need, Adam will more often than not stay behind and act as a consultant or source of information for Samus while she is out in the field.
Weaknesses
Psychological Flaws:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Caused by witnessing the death of her parents and the destruction of her home at the hands of Ridley and the Space Pirates, the incident left Samus as the sole survivor of the colony and has haunted her ever since. While she is usually unburdened by it after so many years, certain stimuli have been shown to bring the memories right back to the surface of Samus's mind, compromising her judgement and combat ability on numerous occasions. The strongest source of stimuli, however, is gone, or at least believed to be - having been supposedly killed for the final time during Samus's assault on SR388 to reclaim the Metroid Hatchling from the Space Pirates, Samus fought him only twice more, once as a clone and once as a manifestation of an X parasite's host. Whether or not he remains dead, though, is up to debate - the monster had hounded her for years, and had returned from worse.
A Conscience: As ironic as it may sound, it is precisely the trait that allowed Samus to build her reputation as a Hunter of renown that often compromises her ability to act as a Hunter - unlike many other bounty hunters, Samus will often lack the ruthless edge needed to combat many opponents unless they are clearly in the wrong, and many times she has avoided using lethal force in the presence of others, especially young children, likely a result of what she went through herself. While this has sometimes resulted in her capturing targets that many believed only stoppable through killing, it has also resulted in her being used as a unwitting pawn by many in the past and has allowed a few of her quarries to initially escape her.
Physical Flaws:
More or less human: Despite the enhanced abilities and strengths that have come with being entrusted with the gifts of the Chozo and the abilities of the Metroids, Samus is still for all intensive purposes human. She may heal quicker and have much stronger resistances to certain environmental hazards, but any wound that would be lethal to a normal human will most likely kill her as well, and she is still vulnerable to extremes in heat, cold and corrosive substances. Her suit isn't perfect either - if it takes enough hits the shielding will fail, and the suit will be incapable of repairing itself or the shields on the fly without absorbing external sources of energy.
Metroid DNA: While Samus did indeed gain many strengths that the Metroids possessed, she gained a crippling weakness from them as well - like the original creatures, Samus is now extremely vulnerable to the cold outside of her Fusion Suit, and the weakness reaches her even there without the Varia Suit upgrade. As the temperature begins to drop Samus's reactions and movement speed will dramatically begin to slow, and even in temperatures that many might simply describe as merely "chilly" she may very well be wracked with uncontrollable shivering. Cold based attacks, if not protected against, can very easily send her into shock with only a few glancing hits or one or two direct hits.
Other Flaws:
EXPLAIN: The Scan Visor, while a very versatile and powerful tool, is not all knowing - there have always been a handful of exceptions to its power here and there; languages that defied translation without a context to place them in, creatures and objects actually capable of jamming the visor's scans, and above all things that just plain could not be seen in the visible. Samus must have the target of her scan within her line of sight, and it must be visible to the naked eye. On top of that she must be relatively close for her visor to be able to acquire the target of the scan, with the maximum distance of a scannable object being roughly 100 meters away. Anything outside of that range will show up in her visor and she will be able to lock onto the object, but unable to actually scan it until she gets within range of it.
Precognition: Despite the power of the ability, Samus's precognition is subtle, more of a danger sense than anything else - unlike full blooded Chozo Samus lacks the ability to actually see into the future, instead gaining brief moments of insight into enemy movements or the urge to dodge or move in a certain direction only moments before an attack hits or starts heading her way, leaving her with precious few seconds to actually act on the information. On top of that knowing is not the same thing as doing - while it makes Samus incredibly difficult to hit and a very accurate, precise fighter at times, some attacks are simply undodgable.
Brief History: Samus began life as a young girl on the mining colony of K-2L with her parents, Rodney Aran and Virginia Aran. When she was three years old, her hometown was visited by the Chozo, an ancient bird-like race. They were in need of Afloraltite, which was mined on K-2L by the Federation colonists there. They came in peace, and Samus immediately found a kindred spirit in a Chozo elder named Old Bird. He taught Samus that befriending and understanding others can be used to solve problems. He then demonstrates this philosophy by showing Samus how to befriend Pyonchi, a rabbit-like creature; he remained Samus's companion through many years. Rodney Aran refused the Chozo the Afloraltite they sought, and the Chozo ship left K-2L empty-handed the day that they landed.
Unfortunately, a Space Pirate flagship was following the Chozo, hoping for a chance to steal any Afloraltite the Chozo might discover. It landed on the innocent colony and a raid ensued, led by none other than the dragon-like bioform Ridley. Samus, remembering what Old Bird had taught her, attempted to befriend Ridley in spite of his terrifying appearance. Because he felt humiliated and embarrassed in front of his subordinates, Ridley attempted to kill Samus. Virginia saw and got in the way of the strike, just as any mother would. She suffered the fatal blow. At the same time, Rodney infiltrated the Space Pirates' vessel and ignited the Afloraltiite the Space Pirates had stolen, thus sacrificing himself and destroying all of the Space Pirates. Ridley was mortally wounded but survived, feeding off of the corpses of the deceased colonists to accelerate his own healing. The only survivor of the attack was Samus.
Soon after the Chozo left, they received a distress signal from the colonists. Old Bird feared the worst, and ordered the ship to return to K-2L. Old Bird and Grey Voice discovered Samus and brought her to their home planet, Zebes. Mother Brain, a sentient organic robot created by the Chozo, predicted that Samus's frail body could not withstand harsh life in Zebes. The Chozo hoped to evade this problem by integrating Chozo DNA with hers and equipping her with the Power Suit, a bio-mechanical suit with the ability to assimilate many weapons and functions.
From that point on Old Bird and Gray Voice trained her in the ways of the Power Suit. They taught her how to use it and that she must use her power to protect others for the good of the galaxy. After a particularly difficult training session, in which Samus failed to destroy the targets she had been asked to destroy because she was not focusing properly, Gray Voice reminded her that if she wanted to survive and protect others, then she must utilize her abilities to the max; second or third place will never do.
Samus ran off to calm down; she watched an Iono Feria absorb moisture and ionize it to fly. Samus fed the Iono Feria and picked some flowers that the Iono Feria were near. When Gray Voice came to check on her, she showed him the flowers. When Gray Voice saw them, he freaked out and told Samus that the flowers were extremely poisonous Badger Clover. Gray Voice and Mother Brain realized that the Iono Feria carried the Badger Clover to Zebes, and Gray Voice ordered for the flowers and the Iono Feria to be burned. Samus objected to the needless shedding of blood, but Gray Voice insisted. The Iono Feria picked up weapons lying nearby and began to defend themselves. Samus took matters into her own hands and shot the weapons away from the Iono Feria. Samus managed to calm down the Iono Feria, and Mother Brain began damage control.
Samus went to a different room to calm down, and Old Bird came to talk to her. He told her that she was ready to leave Zebes and head out on her own. Samus was skeptical, but Old Bird silenced her doubts. Samus resolved then and there to live up to her predecessors' legacy and become the true "Protector of the Galaxy".
At an unspecified point after Samus left the Chozo, she joined up with the Federation Police. While she was in the Police, she was assigned several recon missions, all of which were likely designed to keep tabs on Space Pirate activity in her area. At one point, Samus was assigned to the planet Jigrad. She was monitoring Space Pirate activity in the area with her comrades Kreatz and Mauk. When Samus' comrades came to check on her at her post, she gave them the numbers of the Space Pirates. Kreatz took a look, and he identified the leader of the Space Pirates name to be Kani, but he was not able to ascertain what the Space Pirates were doing there. Samus told him that the Space Pirates had left a remnant of their forces; they were forcing the natives of the planet to build a "gaudy building" for no apparent reason.
Kreatz had just suggested to go and report back to headquarters when Samus noticed something; the Space Pirates had brought in a group of children to work on their "gaudy building". The Space Pirates brought in the group of children and "prepared everything as usual". "Preparing things as usual" entailed setting up a sensor at a certain height; if a child failed to trigger the sensor, they were dispatched. The adults working on the building pleaded for the Space Pirates to stop killing children, implying that the Space Pirates made that a grisly habit. Samus was surprised by such a cruel act, even coming from the Space Pirates. The Space Pirate began to taunt the little girl he was preparing to kill, saying that it was simply for amusement and telling the little girl to "scream and cry". The Space Pirates shot the girl, but their beams "shot back"; Samus had rushed down in her Power Suit and grabbed the girl. She placed the Space Pirates under arrest. The Space Pirate leader pointed out that Samus was seemingly alone and ordered his men to attack, beginning a firefight. Samus sent the civilians to safety, and began her fighting. Kreatz was worried about the consequences of disobeying orders, so he asked for advice from Mauk, whom had been silent up to that point. Mauk's answer was simply to join the conflict. That prompted Kreatz to join the conflict, as he enjoyed a firefight as well.
After the firefight, there was one Space Pirate left alive. When the Space Pirate happened to crawl underneath the sensor the girl had failed to trigger, Samus decided to kill the Space Pirate just as he was preparing to do to the little girl. The Space Pirate begged for mercy, but Samus remembered the murders on K-2L and was going to shoot him anyway. Just then, Samus heard the cries of the little girl; she had been keeping it in the whole time. The women of the colony comforted the little girl, telling her that it was over. Samus decided to not shed any more blood and placed the Space Pirate under arrest.
Afterwards, Chief Hardy, the commander in charge of Samus and her friends, reprimanded the three for disobeying orders. The little girl came to thank Samus for saving her, but Samus told the girl that she was the one who had saved her. Samus walked off hand in hand with the little girl, who told Samus her name; Damara.
Later, Adam Malkovich told Chief Hardy that while the Pirates were gone, now he had to deal with a piece of baggage; Samus Aran. Samus, however, had had enough - the incident on Jigrad had not been the first time she'd disobeyed orders to save lives, and decided to leave the Federation Police to follow her own path as a Hunter. Soon after this a distress call came from Zebes as the Pirates had found the Chozo enclave and begun to attack - Samus, not wasting a moment, rushed off to defend her home with Kreatz and Mauk right behind her, arriving too late to save most of the Chozo but in time to see what had transpired. Mother Brain and Gray Voice had apparently betrayed the Chozo after the Space Pirates, led by Ridley, had breached the planetary shield, siding with the invaders in exchange for positions of power - upon capturing Samus and her allies, however, events took a turn for the unexpected as they offered her a position as a Pirate commander alongside Ridley, Gray Voice and Mother Brain, the later two remembering the potential she had shown as a child.
Samus refused once it was revealed that all of the Chozo who weren't of worth had been hunted and killed, and things began to quickly spiral downhill once it was revealed to Ridley where the Chozo had found Samus - K2-L, the colony that had been destroyed years earlier. Ridley had not forgotted Samus but rather had not recognized her years later, and he used that to full effect once it became clear that she would not join them - in detailing the attack and how he'd survived by consuming the bodies of the deceased he triggered Samus's PSTD, and even then did not stop, driving the woman to beg to die rather than reliving the experience.
As Ridley was about to grant her wish Gray Voice intervened - having long since realized that the Pirates could not be defeated in a direct struggle he had been biding his time, waiting for an ideal chance to kill Ridley and Mother Brain - in rushing to Zebes on her own, however, Samus had foiled the plan, and in saving her he had tipped his hand too early. Knowing that he could not win the fight, Gray Voice simply settled for briefly incapacitating Ridley, donning his own ancient Chozo power armor and buying Kreatz and Mauk enough time to escape with Samus, turning on Mother Brain with the intent to at least kill her. Gray Voice failed, and was killed in the counter attack as Samus, Mauk and Kreatz fled back to Federation Space.
Some time after the Space Pirates had established a power base on Zebes, the Galactic Federation hired Samus Aran to destroy Mother Brain and the Metroids the Pirates were amassing. Returning to Zebes, Samus defeated Ridley and Kraid, obtaining a number of Chozo technologies during her explorations of the ruins that were once her home before gaining access to Tourian and the depths of the Space Pirate base. There, she defeated the Metroids and Mother Brain which activated a self destruct sequence as she died, a final act meant to kill Samus alongside her. Samus managed to escape from Tourian but was attacked by the Pirates in orbit around Zebes and her gunship was shot down, destroying both her first gunship and the original Power Suit given to her by Gray Voice and Old Bird in the process. This left her without the protection of her Power Suit with only her emergency pistol for defense and with no choice but to infiltrate the Pirates' Mother Ship in the hopes of discovering a way to escape the planet.
After evading the many Zebesians aboard the ship (the Space Pirate having taken the name and declared themselves the "native" inhabitants of the world), Samus eventually worked her way back into the ruins, deeper than ever before, reaching an area she had been only once as a child and dicovering an ancient test left by the Chozo. After defeating it, Samus gained a more powerful suit that enabled her the use of all items she had acquired on the planet. She then worked her way to the top of the Mother Ship, where she battled a mechanical version of Ridley known as Mecha Ridley. After destroying the machine, the ship's self destruct is activated, forcing Samus to steal a small Pirate vessel and flee the ship before is destroyed. As the mothership burned on the planet below Samus began the long trek back to Federation space once more.
Several months later and after receiving a signal from an unidentified distress beacon, Samus tracks it back to a vessel in orbit above Tallon IV and moves to intercept it. Upon her arrival, she discovers an abandoned Space Pirate Frigate, the Orpheon. As Samus explores the ghost ship, she learns that the Space Pirates performed many experiments there, most of which were performed on creatures native to Tallon IV with the intent of creating biological weapons. Eventually, Samus comes upon the Reactor Core of the frigate, where a Parasite Queen lurks. Samus defeats the mutated monster, but it falls down the core, causing the ship's power core to begin to overload in a chain reaction that would eventually destroy the ship. As Samus moved to escape the doomed frigate she sees her rival; Ridley, reborn as Meta Ridley, escapes the frigate to head to the planet's surface. Leaving the frigate herself in a dash to her gunship, Samus flies to the surface of Tallon IV to investigate further. During the escape, however, Samus's suit was damaged by a powerful electric discharge from an overloaded power conduit - while Samus herself was unharmed most of her suit's systems were overloaded themselves, reducing Samus to her most basic Power Suit and Power Beam.
As she began to explore the planet surface, she discovers several Chozo ruins, left behind by the planet's original inhabitants much as on Zebes - unlike that planet, however, there are next to no signs of struggle, with the world's Chozo seemingly having died for no reason at all. While there, she learns that the planet is slowly being corrupted by the impact of a large meteor, which had caused the destruction of the Chozo civilization on the planet. This meteor corrupted almost all of Tallon IV; the water supply, the natural wildlife, even some of the Chozo themselves - those who didn't die were driven to madness, leaving wraith like spectres behind who killed all that trespassed upon their homes.
As Samus began to probe deeper into the planet's mysteries she discovers that the Space Pirates are mining the mutagenic Phazon and attempting to use it for their own purposes, much as they had upon the frigate Orpheon. She happens upon their research labs within Phendrana Drifts at the Glacier One outpost, discovering that the Space Pirates managed to take some of the Metroids from Zebes and were experimenting on them. While she was in the labs, she learns of Project Titan. Later, she is forced to defeat its result; Thardus, a living, sentient mass of Phazon ore. She also interrupts their mining at the Phazon Mines, and defeats their most powerful experiment, the Omega Pirate, corrupting her Power Suit with Phazon as the deceased creature falls on her - ironically, rather than weakening her it dramatically boosts the performance of her Power Suit much as it had the Pirate, turning it into the Phazon Suit and granting her immunity against most forms of Phazon.
Eventually Samus learned that the source of the corruption was inside the Impact Crater. The crater had been sealed by twelve Chozo Artifacts at the Artifact Temple by the Chozo before their corruption - the Pirates, seeking to reach the source of the corruption and harness it for their own purposes, had long sought these artifacts only to be repulsed by many of the Chozo Ghosts in the ruins, with what few they had managed to acquire being stolen back by the wraiths. Amongst their lore, she reads that the Chozo not only foresaw the coming of a Worm, but of the Entrusted One - a prophecy that points to Samus herself.
Samus gathered the twelve Chozo Artifacts and opened the Impact Crater, confronting and defeating Meta Ridley in the process. Inside the crater she encountered the source of Phazon on the planet, the Metroid Prime - a highly mutated Metroid corrupted by the original Phazon seed within the meteor that had gained the ability to produce Phazon from its own body. After the creature is defeated, however, it grabs hold of Samus' Phazon Suit, attempting to absorb it but destabilizes before it can completely do so, nevertheless robbing Samus of the suit in the process. Samus departs Tallon IV, and leaves for another assignment. However, the Metroid Prime survived, as Dark Samus - a bastadized amalgam of the creature's original core, the remains of the Phazon Suit and Samus's own DNA.
Nearly a year after Samus's investigation of Tallon IV the disappearance of the G.F.S. Tyr prompts the Galactic Federation to hire Samus Aran to locate the frigate and offer assistance of needed. Upon her arrival at the planet Aether, the last known position of the Tyr, her ship is damaged by magnetic storms and she is stranded on the surface while the ship repairs itself. Leaving her ship to tend to its wounds, Samus discovers that the entire crew of the Tyr has been killed by hordes of insectile creatures called Splinters, and that their bodies have become hosts for an unknown parasitic biomass. As she further explored Aether, she happens upon the Great Temple and fights the Alpha Splinter there, acquiring the Energy Transfer Module after defeating it. Afterwards, she meets U-Mos, the Sentinel of Aether and the leader of the Luminoth, who was protecting the final Energy Controller in the Great Temple. He explains that the impact of a cosmic object on the planet caused a division, and that as a result, Aether exists in a state of unstable transdimensional flux, meaning that the world's position in space could collapse at any time. He beseeches her to help the Luminoth stave off their enemy created from that impact, the Ing, using the Energy Transfer Module that bonded with her suit. She accepts, and sets out to collect the planetary energy stolen by the Ing from the Agon, Torvus, and Sanctuary regions to save the Luminoth.
During her mission, she encounters her Phazon-powered doppelganger Dark Samus, Metroid Prime reborn using DNA from Samus and the structure of her Phazon suit, and engages her in combat multiple times. She also dismantles several Space Pirate operations on the planet, the creatures having discovered a secondary source of Phazon in Dark Aether and quickly moving to claim it as their own. She finally makes her way to the top of the dark Sky Temple and kills the Emperor Ing, siphoning the last of the stolen planetary energy. This causes Dark Aether to collapse. As she escapes, she encounters Dark Samus again. She engages her in combat, presumably destroying her, and escapes back to Light Aether just as the planet's dark mirror image collapses. After the incident, the G.F.S. Anhur comes to the planet and helps the Luminoth rebuild. The crew of the Anhur finds Phazon left behind by the Space Pirates and brings it back with them to Federation Space.
About six months after the events that occurred on the planet Aether, Samus Aran is again issued an assignment by the Galactic Federation: she is to travel to the GFS Olympus, the flagship of the Galactic Federation, for a scheduled meeting with Fleet Admiral Castor Dane and three other hunters - Rundas, an arrogant, ice-wielding hunter; Ghor, a technically brilliant and kind hunter; and Gandrayda, a playful, flexible, and formidable shape-shifter. The four hunters are briefed concerning a digital Phazon virus that had spread to several supercomputers dubbed Aurora Units. During the hunters' briefing, a Space Pirate raid on the Olympus is launched via several Space Pirate Boarding Pods. The Space Pirates then launch an attack on the planet being orbited by the Olymupus, Norion, which is one of the most important military planets in the entire Galactic Federation. Samus, Rundas, Ghor, Gandrayda, and the Galactic Federation give chase.
On the surface of Norion, the hunters and the Federation realize that the Space Pirates have disabled several power conduits that are needed for the digital interfaces to work properly. Aurora Unit 242 suddenly indicates that a Phazon-like meteor, later revealed to be a Leviathan, is about to crash into the planet and will infect Norion in its entirety with Phazon if it is not stopped. Samus and the hunters are dispatched to restore energy to the downed power conduits, which in turn will power an energy cannon that can be used to destroy the meteor. While Samus is engaged in this task, she encounters Meta Ridley, once again resurrected by the Space Pirates. She defeats him once again and restores power to all the generators.
Once the hunters arrive at the Energy Cannon's controls, they encounter the revived Dark Samus. Dark Samus utilizes her natural ability to generate Phazon and creates a Phazon blast that renders the four hunters unconscious. Samus, however, is able to remain awake long enough to fire the Energy Cannon, destroying the meteor.
One month later, Samus awakens and is informed by a trooper that the other three hunters woke up several weeks ago. The hunters were producing Phazon on their own as a result of Dark Samus' attack, but the Federation's medical team noticed no ill-effects, so they outfitted the hunters with PED Suits. The three hunters had been sent to Bryyo, Elysia, and the Pirate Homeworld to destroy Leviathans that had impacted there. Communications with the hunters were lost shortly thereafter, and so Samus is issued a PED Suit similar in nature and appearance to those being worn by several squads of Federation Marines and is issued a new assignment: find and destroy the Leviathans and, if possible, discover what happened to the other hunters.
During the mission, Samus discovers that the hunters each show signs of being taken over by Phazon Corruption due to using the PED suits. Each of the other hunters attacks Samus when she encounters them, and Samus is forced to terminate each one. While on the Pirate Homeworld, Samus learns that the hunters had been completely consumed by Phazon and were under the dominion of Dark Samus. Dark Samus had even placed them in command of the Space Pirate forces on each planet. After destroying each Leviathan, Samus's body becomes controlled more and more by her natural Phazon; it becomes increasingly difficult to stay in control while in Hypermode.
After Samus destroys each Leviathan, Aurora Unit 242 announces the discovery of a single planet that is the source of all Phazon, called Phaaze, and that the Phazon levels there are on the rise. Dark Samus has been controlling it using an Aurora Unit, Aurora Unit 313, stolen from the GFS Valhalla. Samus explores the now-derelict Valhalla and discovers a means of travel to Phaaze: the Leviathans are capable of creating wormholes in order to reach their destinations, and the Space Pirates possess a Leviathan rigged to fly like a ship. While the Federation fleet distracts Space Pirate forces, Samus boards the Leviathan vessel and flies to Phaaze.
When Samus arrives at Phaaze and steps out of her gunship, the sheer amount of Phazon present in her body causes her Phazon corruption to rise to one-hundred percent. Her ship is unable to recognize her as the owner, so passage on the gunship is unobtainable until she rids her body of the Phazon contained in it. She is forced to vent her energy tanks and enter permanent Hypermode, becoming more and more saturated with Phazon the longer she stays on Phaaze.
Once Samus arrives at the Sanctum of the Phazon core, she encounters Dark Samus once again and engages her in battle. Dark Samus is forced to merge with the stolen Aurora Unit 313 as a last resort. With her Phazon levels ever rising, Samus destroys the corrupted supercomputer. Dark Samus emerges from the downed Aurora Unit and makes one last gesture towards Samus before vanishing into a gas of Phazon, presumably destroyed for the final time as the Phazon Seed within Samus decays and dissapates, removing the Hunter's corruption.
Samus quickly flees the unstable planet. Her objective is completed, but at a great cost; many Federation troopers and ships were lost, the lives of each of the other hunters, and great mental distress to Samus herself. With Phaaze eliminated, the threat of Phazon Corruption disappears. Samus flies off in search of a new target, and possibly a new mission, but she is followed by a mysterious ship.
Some time after neutralizing the threat Phazon posed, Samus is ordered to eradicate the entire Metroid population on the planet of SR388. After battling through the numerous Metroids and other hostile creatures, she arrives in the Queen Metroid's lair and destroys the few remaining Metroids found in it. After a fierce battle with the Queen Metroid, Samus emerges victorious and completes her main objective. However, after heading towards her gunship to leave SR388, a Metroid, the last of its kind, hatches from an egg. Instead of terminating the infant Metroid, Samus takes it to the Ceres Space Colony for the Galactic Federation to conduct research on the specimen.
Shortly after departing from the Ceres Space Colony, Samus receives a distress signal indicating that the colony had come under attack by Space Pirates. When she returns to the station, she finds the scientists dead and the Metroid missing. After further exploration into Ceres, Samus encounters Ridley, who is holding the Metroid. She is unable to defeat Ridley before he flees with the Metroid and activates the station's self-destruct. Samus follows the Pirates to a rebuilt Zebes to finish them off and retrieve the Hatchling.
On Zebes, Samus encounters several enemies she has encountered in the past, such as Kraid. New additions are also added to the Pirate forces. After defeating Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon, and Ridley, Samus gains access to a rebuilt and pulchritudinous Tourian where she discovers a host of Metroids. Deeper within the lair, she confronts the Metroid Hatchling, which has grown to a massive size; it appears to be in its adult stage. The Metroid feeds on Samus's Energy Tanks and leaves her with a single unit of energy before flying off.
Once she recoveres, Samus works her way to Mother Brain. Though she manages to destroy Mother's containment vessel, Mother rises up from the ground with a mechanical body. Among her many attacks, Mother fires an energy beam that is powerful enough to immobilize Samus. However, before Mother is able to kill Samus, the Hatchling attacks, draining Mother Brain's energy. The Hatchling then begins replenishing Samus's energy, even as it is assaulted by Mother Brain. After her energy is restored, the Metroid again tries to attack Mother Brain, but it is killed in the process. Samus discovers that as a result of the Hatchling's restoration of her healt, all of her beam weapons are replaced by the far more powerful Hyper Beam. She then uses her new-found power to destroy Mother Brain. Immediately after Mother Brain is defeated, a self-destruct sequence is activated. Samus escapes, and the entire planet is destroyed in the explosion.
A few months after her return from Zebes, Samus, who is no longer under orders, receives a distress signal known as "Baby's Cry," which is emanating from a space station known as the Bottle Ship, and takes it upon herself to respond and investigate the facility. Shortly after landing, she comes into contact with the Galactic Federation 07th Platoon, led by her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich. Although she is initially left in the dark about the Federation's motives (Anthony Higgs is the only person who treats her amicably), she cooperates with the platoon to take down the Brug Mass. Adam allows Samus to aid the Federation if she will accept his one condition; she must obey orders from him. Samus accepts, and begins her mission.
Her directives take her to three sectors, each with a different simulated environment: Sector 1, the Biosphere (a lush, jungle area), Sector 2, the Cryosphere (a frozen wasteland), and Sector 3, the Pyrosphere (a deadly expanse of lava, rock, and volcanic structures). She faces many familiar enemies during her stay, along with a plethora of new and bizarre creations, including Nightmare and the RB176 Ferrocrusher. She eventually learns from Madeline Bergman that a rogue group of Federation agents has been, against Federation protocol, genetically modifying the life-forms aboard the ship for use as bioweapons. The group in charge also dispatched an assassin to eliminate anyone who learns this, and this assassin is in the platoon. Much to her surprise, Samus also learns that Mother Brain's AI was used to create an android that could control Metroids, long thought to have been extinguished, and that DNA from her Power Suit was even used to unwittingly clone Ridley.
Her desire to stop the rogue agent and resolve the crisis leads Samus to the Bioweapon Research Center, an off-shoot of the Biosphere, where she meets the real Madeline Bergman and discovers that she and other scientists accidentally created a Queen Metroid. After a long and difficult battle (made worse with the knowledge that Adam sacrificed himself to destroy Sector Zero), Samus destroys the Queen, shuts down the rebellious android, and leaves the Bottle Ship, which has since been marked by the Federation for destruction. She returns before the Federation destroys the ship in order to retrieve Adam's helmet, but her task is hindered by the appearance of another enemy from her past, Phantoon. With the specter's defeat, a self-destruct sequence is activated. Samus races to and climbs into her Gunship, clad in her Zero Suit. As she places Adam's helmet in the seat beside her, Samus reflects on her experiences on the Bottle Ship and narrowly escapes her demise.
Some time after her return from the Bottle Ship, Samus is tasked with guarding a group of Biologic Space Laboratories Research Station employees who are studying the life-forms of SR388 now that the planet is devoid of Metroids. While exploring an underground cavern, Samus encounters and dispatches a Hornoad with a Missile before being infected by an unknown, amorphous organism known as an X Parasite. As Samus begins to return to the B.S.L Research Station, the X infects her central nervous system, causing her to lose consciousness and control of her ship, which crashes into a nearby asteroid belt after ejecting Samus via an escape pod. B.S.L. employees find the pod and transport it to Galactic Federation headquarters, during which time the X multiplies inside Samus's body, leaving her in critical condition. Infected portions of Samus's suit are surgically removed, and a vaccine is developed from the DNA of the Metroid Hatchling to rid Samus of the X inside her body. The vaccine grants Samus the ability to absorb the X to regain health and weapons while also imparting the Metroids' weakness to cold upon her (an unexpected side effect). Once she recovers, Samus, clad in the Fusion Suit, is given a new ship (with a built-in computer through which she receives orders) and is sent back to B.S.L. Research Station to investigate after it is marred by a large explosion.
Returning to the station, Samus discovers a massacre. Every living creature aboard the station has been killed and infected by the very same parasite that had very nearly killed her, some arriving within research specimens her own team had captured on the surface of SR388, and most troublesome of all was the fate of the infected remains of her Power Suit, which had also been brought to the station - still infected with X parasites, the remains of the suit had reformed into a likeness of Samus dubbed the SA-X, a entity with all of Samus's powers, experience and technology in her most powerful state, with the earlier explosions caused by a Power Bomb used to escape the Quarantine Bay and release the other X Parasites.
As Samus delved deeper into the station, working agains the clock to halt the spread and mulitplication of the X in a losing battle She eventually comes across a small group of survivors up on the station's Habitation Deck - several creatures that Samus knew as native to Zebes, the last of their kind and the only other organisms on the station to remain uninfected by the X. Releasing them from lockdown, Samus clears the way for them to reach her ship safely before continuing her fight agains the X, encountering a rogue security mech that has been infected over the course of the explorations, as well as the SA-X - without the penetrating power of her original plasma beam Samus is forced to flee from the conflicts, with the creature hunting her relentlessly.
After several more skirmishes against X hosts across a number of habitats, one of which involving a failed attempt by the X to destroy the station (an act that makes little initial sense to Samus given the species' drive for self preservation and replication), the Hunter tracks the security mech to the station's nocturnal habitats and defeats it once and for all, obtaining the plasma and wave beams in the process. During her explorations, however, Samus makes a startling discovery, one that explains the X's attempts to destroy the station and themselves along with it - just as aboard the Bottle Ship the Federation has begun a program to breed Metroids. The X, having absorbed the knowledge of the program from the infected researchers, had viewed the last surviving group of their natural predators as a grave threat to their species as a whole, and had moved to eliminate said threat despite the risk to the X population aboard the station. While in the Metroid Hatchery Samus makes a second startling revelation - the SA-X that had been hunting her all over the station had mulitplied no fewer than ten times, leaving a grand total of eleven of the monstrosities. As she debated with the AI aboard her ship who she had dubbed "Adam" due to the likeness between it and her old commander their conversation was suddenly cut short as one of the SA-X attacked the Hatchery, which was forcibly ejected into space and destroyed to maintain quarantine of the labs - Samus, warned by Adam, barely managed to escape, encountering a manifestation of Ridley, an X parasite that had infected the corpse of the clone from the Bottle Ship, brought to the Biologic Station for study.
Making her way to another one of the station's command rooms, Samus resumed her debate with the AI only to learn that her orders from the Federation had been rescinded - in fact, they had ordered her to stand down, having outright denied her access to several key weapons and upgrades in the hopes that she would continue to avoid the SA-X until Federation vessels could arrive and capture the creature for study, and upon learning that Samus had absorbed many of the abilities they had denied her from X parasites had ordered the ship's AI to detain her. Enraged by the foolishness of the Federation and fully aware of what would happen should the X ever leave the station or the surface of SR388, the argument between her and the ship AI reached a climax when Samus inadvertantly referred to the AI as "Adam" - a fortuitus mistake as luck would have it, as the similarities between the AI and her old commander were not a coincidence. Having been newly made from Adam Malkovich's mind, many of the memories of his past life had remained locked in something akin to a state of amnesia until Samus had referred to him by name - after having done so, many of the memories, along with much of his sense of judgement, returned.
Reaching the same conclusion that Samus had, Adam unlocked the doors to the room, ordering Samus to reach the station's command deck and program in a course for SR388, along with the station's self destruct alongside it - while it wouldn't destroy the planet it would devestate the biosphere, boiling the atmosphere and water and killing most of the planet's X infestation - those which did survive would soon perish without hosts, or overhunt their food sources to extinction. Acting as ordered, Samus made her way to her objective only to encounter the very creature responsible for the release of the X - the SA-X. Confronting her doppleganger in a final showdown, Samus defeated it after a long and grueling battle that left them both exhausted - the SA-X, reduced to its natural form of a standard Core X, fled from the fight before Samus could absorb it.
Tired from the fight but not particularly worse for wear, Samus made her way to the control room, laying in the course given to her by Adam and activating the station's self destruct, rushing back to the docking bays only to find them in ruins, with her ship gone. While it had been intended to keep that very thing from happening, several Metroid hatchlings had escaped the destruction of the Metroid Hatchery, making their way to the SR388 simulated environments where they quickly matured - in the place of where Samus's ship once was there was now a fully grown Omega Metroid. Engaging the creature in combat, Samus quickly fell back under the adult Metroid's onslaught, both exhausted from her previous fight with the SA-X and without the Ice Beam needed to actually cause harm to the creature. As Samus lay stunned and vulnerable to a final blow from the creature with the clock ticking down to the station's obliteration, the SA-X Samus had defeated earlier made a return - while even weaker from the earlier fight than Samus was, the parasite had sensed its natural enemy in the docking bay and made its way there to confront it. Resuming Samus's form, the SA-X attacked the Omega Metroid, repelling the creature with its Ice Beam for a brief moment before being defeated in a single strike, reduced to its natural form once more.
Samus, however, had been given more than enough time to at least somewhat recover, and in a desperate move she moved to absorb the SA-X - the creature, unable to flee after being soundly defeated twice in succession, was this time successfully absorbed. Regaining her Ice Beam, Samus made quick work of the Omega Metroid, destroying the creature but finding herself with nowhere to go afterwards. Seemingly trapped on the station, Samus could do little but watch as the planet below loomed closer and closer, only to have her ship seemingly pilot itself into the hangar bay of its own free will - not questioning a way out at the time, Samus dashed for the ship, boarding it and piloting it away from the station just before it entered SR388's atmosphere and reaching minimum safe distance before it detonated, destroying the planet's ecosystem along with it. Left to rest and recuperate, it was only when given time to think that Samus realized that the ship was not capable of piloting itself - the Federation had placed several electronic shackles within the systems to prevent the AI from controlling it. When she asked Adam how he had managed to leave the hanger to avoid destruction at the hands of the Omega Metroid as well as return for her, Adam merely replied that he had "asked for a hand" - the creatures that Samus had guided back to her ship earlier had, under Adam's direction, piloted the ship in his stead.
Tired, beaten and weary but alive from what had quite possibly been the toughest fights of her life, Samus left the remains of SR388, unknowing of what the future would bring.
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