A few weeks ago now, someone here discovered a previously-unknown secret in Federation Force - that Federation General Alex Miles had a face, and is in fact a woman. This revelation also added fuel to the longstanding theory that Alex could be Sylux's true identity, and that her face was left hidden in the credits after all to avoid signposting this too early.
A few days ago now, federation mechanic Myles MacKenzie was revealed to us, and in among the uproar and complaining and counter-complaining, I've seen people suggest - most jokingly, but some sincerely, that it could be an interesting and/or stupid twist if Myles turned out to be Sylux's true identity, through some temporal shenanigans.
Personally, I've just been stuck on the fact that we have two characters named after 1.6 kilometers, despite the difference in spelling, and despite one being a surname and the other being a first name. Add to that that both games involve varying amounts of Sylux, and have Tanabe at the helm, and it just feels odd. There's enough seperation at play that it's very obvious the two characters aren't related or secretly the same person, but also enough similarity that I doubt it was random chance from a creative standpoint.
So my theory?
Alex Miles is Sylux, but Myles MacKenzie is a red herring. Samus will encounter Sylux at some point, get a psychic vision flashback that gives her some fragmented pieces of context without really explaining anything, and the name "Myles" will be heard. This will lead to her suspecting our dear annoying mechanic of either being a secret double-agent, or destined to become a traitor in the future/past thanks to time travel. But then near the end Sylux will be unmasked as Alex, and Myles' name, quite literally, will be cleared.
Guess we'll see if I'm onto anything or if I'm spouting nonsense, only two weeks away now.
I will say though; I love the design for General Alex Miles from Federation Force. It perfectly blends the Federation Marine and Federation formal attire together perfectly;
Given one is from Prime and the other from the mainline games, Miles’ outfit basically marries the two depictions of the Federation from either series together. The gold is such a nice touch too… I’d love to see fanart of Miles in a non-chibi art style, and as a full-body portrait too; I don’t think we ever see Miles in person, just from the chest up?
They’re an interesting character to me; Neither their gender or even species is clarified, but the latter might be human because of the name and build. Miles’ name reminds me of Adam Malkovich… Alex Miles… They’re the Federation Force’s CO, their own Adam, just as the pilots themselves are akin to Samus in terms of gameplay and being unique Federation assets. Miles notably wants the Metroid egg on Talvania, saying it could bring “good” to the galaxy… Big red flag of course.
But it IS worth noting that the primary objective of the mission is to destroy all Metroids on Talvania by activating the self-destruct; The egg is optional and secondary. And when the Metroids are released from containment after the Federation Force activated the self-destruct countdown, Miles tells them to forget about the Metroid egg and just focus on getting out of there; You have to go against their orders by retrieving the egg anyway, and risking yourself to do so.
So Miles is interesting to me in that they might actually be well-intentioned? Or at least care for their troops. Given their introduction in Federation Force, which sets up Sylux’s plans in Beyond, it makes you wonder if Miles will appear there too. Are they corrupt? Do they care, in a “The path to hell is paved with good intentions” sort of way?
Will we see them replace or work alongside Dane in Beyond? They’re a General, which means they command ground troops and infantry; Dane commands the fleet. I speculate the planet we see at the start of Beyond, as well as the rainforest, are both the same world; Probably Cylosis, possibly across different points in time. Which means we won’t see much of space nor the Federation fleet; Which makes Miles more suited as a CO for Samus here, since all Federation allies will be situated on the ground.
Then again, Miles is seen commanding a fleet during the Doomseye battle in Federation Force, so maybe the titles are being loosely used and the developers don’t care for real world accuracy when it comes to military ranking and hierarchy; Tbh I’ve normally never cared either and am only researching it for the sake of reconciling the different depictions and uniforms of the Federation, as well as considering how characters such as Dane, Adam, and Miles interact.
I remember seeing someone suggest that Alex Miles is Sylux; This is why they suggested getting the Metroid egg, and how they were able to sneak in, operate the tech, etc. But this makes you wonder, if they hate the Federation, why value the Force’s lives? Why help them defeat the Space Pirates in the Bermuda system? I guess it all boils down as to the exact nature of Sylux’s hatred for the Federation, if it’s because they’re corrupt but they sympathize with troops they know personally as good people.
Granted Sylux’s intro in Hunters might indicate otherwise, but there could also be other context to that scene, or they don’t know those troops and can’t take the time to evaluate them. As for attacking the Space Pirates, maybe Sylux is strategically maneuvering both factions into destroying one another; It would explain why they’ve never worked with the Space Pirates before and even competed against Weavel in the Alimbic Cluster; They hate the pirates too!
Miles is probably meant to be male and the developers just never considered the gender-ambiguity of the name Alex. But it’d be fun if Miles was a woman, maybe even an alien because Chairman Keaton has a name like that despite also looking like that. And we could meld this with Female Sylux speculation if they’re the same character after all. They’re both mysteriously masked too, though for Miles I imagine it’s because the developers thought a human face would look too silly in the Chibi art style, hence why everyone wears helmets, and Samus never takes hers off. I guess ‘Sylux’ and ‘Alex’ have similar second syllables…
This is a kind-of script, synopsis, for this idea I had: It feels more logical that the Federation would've attempted to send their own saboteurs to Zebes before hiring Samus. Even if she supplied knowledge on Zebes' layout, I think they'd try that first.
This is Samus, so maybe in her selflessness, she insisted on being allowed to try first before handing over that information; She wouldn't want anyone else to die. But I could also see her understanding that the Federation would find this preposterous, because even if she was a former officer, Samus is still one person.
So maybe they tried sending in a more conventional force... And when that disastrously failed, they decided to send Samus in. Because the Space Pirates already know they’re trying, why not? And the first team failing could be a good way to set up how dangerous Zebes is, and necessitate Samus being the one to do it.
But how did this first mission, predating the Zero Mission, go? What do we call it? I've decided on Negative Mission, since anything below Zero is Negative. I also entertained "Negative-1 Mission" but that seemed a bit too silly. So this hypothetical episode, as follows;
Metroid: Negative Mission
It’s a dark room; Three expert pilots are personally debriefed by Admiral Castor Dane. Dane explains that Zebes is a natural fortress, the planet’s surface comprised of mostly barren, thick bed rock. Most life occurs within sprawling cave networks below, carved out millions of years ago by the now-extinct Deorem.
A source has given them valuable intel on Zebes’ internal layout; All of the passageways on the surface leading to the caverns far below. Including one passageway not known by the Space Pirates occupying the planet.
Their mission is simple; To infiltrate Zebes and investigate, and confirm, this hidden entrance. From there, the group will set up a camp, collecting other data as they stay hidden from Space Pirate scouts surveying the planet’s surface. One of them will fly back to the Federation to confirm the mission’s success, before more teams are sent in.
Once the group has amassed enough, they will sneak through Zebes’ caverns using the passageway. Armed with Ice Missiles to destroy any Metroids they come across, the unit’s mission is to assassinate the biomechanical supercomputer known as Mother Brain located deep within Tourian, thereby ending the Space Pirates’ control over the Metroids. It is a dangerous mission, Dane warns them; The pilots confirm they are ready for it, and hope to meet up with the remaining operatives chosen for this heavy task.
Dane also reminds them that their success determines whether or not the rest can follow. It also means they are the first, and only, to die if things go wrong. Unperturbed, the pilots promise the admiral they will face their fates with bravery. Dane seems charmed by their enthusiasm, but as he turns and walks away, has a heavy heart; That’s what they all believe at first, it’s what I thought.
Cut to three Federation stealth crafts flying to Zebes to sneak past the Space Pirate blockade. With stealth fields active, they’re invisible; They tense at the sight of the blockade, but go past all of the large ships and fighters, easy. They relax a bit, having cleared past every ship.
But Pilot A detects something ahead of her craft for a split-second. Something hits the windshield, and slides past; Two seconds later, Pilot A gets readings of her ship’s energy levels suddenly depleting. What she hit was a Metroid, and before it slid off her craft, it managed to latch on with its fangs and is now draining the ship of its energy. Metroids can see right past any cloaking, sensing energy through mysterious means.
Pilots B and C are unable to help as they try to maneuver past the Metroids; Pilot A begins to curse, and Metroids begin lining up in front of the stealth crafts, hoping to snag on. The pilots realize the Metroids are being used as goddamn space mines! Two more latch onto Pilot A’s craft despite her best efforts; Two latch onto B’s, but fortunately one lands on the bottom of his craft, in front of a cannon.
He attempts to shoot it off, to no avail; The Metroid is just out of the way. He strains the turret to the left, shoots again. The shot just barely grazes the Metroid, shaking its gelatinous body. One more shot… There! The force of the blast sends the Metroid careening ahead but out of Pilot B’s flight path as it shrieks, unharmed yet frustrated.
Pilot C narrowly avoids a Metroid, which briefly snags itself by a fang onto the wing, clawing through and disrupting the stealth field slightly; She does a spin and shakes off the angered Metroid.
Meanwhile Pilot A’s losing power fast. The others say to calm down, head for the atmosphere; Air friction during atmospheric entry can be used to pry the Metroids off. Unfortunately for Pilot A, who is beginning to panic, the stealth field has begun to sputter out; And now it has.
The Space Pirate blockade notices a foreign spacecraft, fighters immediately deploy as cruisers direct heavy fire. Pilot A weaves around, unable to make a straight line for Zebes, and begins to panic. The others fret but there’s nothing they can do; Pilot B has to prioritize heading for the atmosphere to get rid of the remaining Metroid, and Pilot C is by no means precise enough to shoot the Metroids off of A without blowing up her ship.
A pleads C to try but it’s too late; Space Pirate fighters have engaged. Pilot A flies around, C curses and deliberates, but with a heavy heart has to keep going as A begs. A’s screen warns her that the engine is losing power fast, as will life support syste-
The AI doesn’t get the chance to finish when everything goes dark. No more power, the Metroids drained it all. Because of inertia, Pilot A’s craft keeps shooting forward at the same speed. One of the fighters contacts a commander; Should we keep them alive, to interrogate? No, dismisses the commander; What could this Federation dog tell us that we don’t already know?
Pilot A squirms and sweats in the speeding quiet of her ship; She hears a scraping, sliding noise as one of the Metroids shifts back into view over the cockpit, its mouth pulsating hungrily. Crying and begging god, she closes her eyes, and Pilot A pulls the manual eject; The cockpit splits open, sending the Metroid flying off with it, just as the Space Pirates fire. The ship doesn’t blow up; Reactor is too dead to explode. It just liquefies into molten metal, sending the other two Metroids flying.
Pilot A whirls around in space, panicking as she tries to regain his bearings. She wails in despair and horror as a Metroid latches onto her face, covering the visor as she sees that same pulsating mouth; It drains him dry, and other Metroids join as she thrashes.
Pilots B and C dive through the atmosphere. B’s Metroid shrieks as it loses its grip, briefly hanging on by a mere fang before it flies off. Pilot B sighs in relief, Pilot C says good job.
Cut to a dark chamber; A bubbling vat as a thing inside begins to pulsate. Electricity arcs between its spines; It hears “Good job” and knows intruders have arrived. Mother Brain overhears Pilot B warning C that his ship’s about to run out of energy.
Cut back to Pilot B as his ship’s engines sputter. With no other choice he pulls the manual eject; His seat shoots out, parachute deploys, as the ship falls to the surface below. Pilot C tells B to send a signal when he lands, so C can pick him up-
Cut back to Mother Brain; A bolt arcs between two spines, and suddenly the transmissions are cut off. Taken aback, B tries to respond, but hears nothing from C. C doesn’t hear anything from B, and tries to reach out, nothing. She curses; Atmospheric interference? She has no choice but to land far below, Pilot B watches despairingly.
He waits, floating from his parachute, just the sound of it billowing in the wind. Pilot B slows his breaths, trying to calm down from his previously racing heart. His seat has built-in thrusters, but it’s best to save that energy, you never know what might happen.
He hears something above; A dreaded cry. A Metroid. He looks up but all he can see is the parachute obscuring whatever’s directly above; There’s no way, he murmurs. How did it follow him so fast? Pilot B begins to breathe fast and heavy again, and decides screw it. He clumsily, hastily reaches for his blaster.
B shoots one of the tethers; This unbalances the parachute, causing him to fall fast and lurch around, spinning. He tries to stay calm, focus, shoot the other tethers. This makes the descent more and more chaotic. One more left, and then four fangs suddenly protrude from the other side of the parachute; The Metroid!
B severs the final tether and drops, fast. The parachute unfurls, wrapping around the distressed Metroid as it cries out. The seat’s backup thrusters fire, righting Pilot B as his descent continues, still quickly. A meter shows fuel running out fast. He looks up uncertainly; The tangled-up Metroid is becoming smaller in the distance.
Cut back to Pilot C, who lands near a cliff that blends in with the rest of the surface from above. She gets out, deploying the stealth hovercraft. Ice Missiles, check; Regular Missiles, also check! As Pilot C drags things out, she steps on the ground. Deep below, something feels it, like a heartbeat.
C has everything, she’s suited up and geared. She tries again to contact Pilot B, to no avail. Pilot C ducks as Space Pirate fighters fly overhead; They don’t see her, the stealth field is still working. She still waits a bit, and finally breathes. Pilot C gets into the craft, one more step pushing her onto it, and then drives off.
Pilot B is almost about to land when the thrusters burn out; His seat drops the last foot or so, landing harshly on the side as he grunts, taking a moment to simmer in the pain. B rapidly gets out, armed with only his blaster. He looks around frantically above; No Metroid. He ducks under some Zebesian foliage, and tries to contact C, estimating some coordinates; Mother Brain is listening. With no response, B growls and stays where he is.
Suddenly he hears a noise, snaps toward it with weapon ready. It’s some small creature; Seems harmless(?) enough but you can never be too sure. Shakily, B tells it to back off, but it simply regards him with curiosity as it hops forward. B is obviously not ready to shoot this thing, maybe it’s just a cute thing…? He’s not sure, he gets more scared as it gets closer, starts to sniff. He tries to nudge it aside with her foot, comes across more like a kick.
The creature jabs, piercing Pilot B’s foot. He screams, hopping around on the other as he shakes his foot, the creature screeching furiously as it digs into the flesh. He tries to hit it against a rock, and in a panic, attempts to shoot the thing off.
He shoots off the creature, AND a chunk of his foot. Pilot B screams even louder, and now he’s on his back, crying and sobbing, pleading to god or whichever, writhing on the dusty, rocky surface of Zebes, clutching his leg as the foot boils and smokes.
Cut back to Pilot C, scanning the horizon; She’s displeased that there’s dust across this otherwise solid, rocky terrain. It’s creating a track; One the fighters overhead would obviously miss. But Aerotrooper patrols would go a lot slower and closer, and have a keener eye to pick up on it. Pilot C makes one more attempt towards B, as we see her first-person perspective-
BAM! Deorem bursts out of the ground, roaring, its mouth opening briefly. It’s like a flash, the hovercraft is rendered into shards of electricity and metal and a bit of fire as Deorem re-enters the ground. Its body loops through, spikes shifting along its sides.
Pilot B is delirious. The sun is in his eyes, he can barely see through his visor. There’s a horrible taste in his mouth. As he comes back to, he wonders where it all went wrong. Regressing, he mutters mama…?
And then he hears it, again; Why, why again?! That dreaded Metroid cry. His eyes snap open, he leans forward, the glare is out of his visor and he sees it up ahead; The damned Metroid. And it’s locked towards him, descending fast.
Pilot B regurgitates a noise of fear as adrenaline kicks in. He spins around, sending dust flying as he tries to run away but falls, screaming and cursing from his burnt-off foot. He starts crawling away, scraping along the dust. He looks back, shoots at the Metroid with his blaster but the shots bounce uselessly off of its indestructible body. B refocuses on getting away, spotting a crevice; Without thinking, he crawls through.
To his luck, Pilot B finds himself atop a cliff overlooking a larger, lush cavern below. He looks behind; There’s some sort of blue-green color, a mass, growing there? Oh god; It’s the Metroid, squeezing through with its flexible body. B tries shooting in panic, but the shots bounce off uselessly, rippling across the Metroid’s body. He desperately tries to push the Metroid back through the crevice, straining to halt its progress, but it easily pops its body out the other end.
Pilot B is knocked over by this, sliding down a hill past lots of alien foliage into some dark undergrowth. As he groans, Pilot B crawls beneath the cover of the flora, unthinking.
Cut back to the Metroid, following above. The foliage doesn’t rustle, thankfully not giving B’s position away. But it doesn’t matter; It tracks him perfectly, undeterred, like there’s some invisible connection pulling the Metroid to Pilot B. Cut back to Pilot B laying low somewhere beneath the foliage, so utterly terrified, teeth and eyes clenched, hoping and wishing to god the Metroid doesn’t find him as sweat beads roll down his face. He’s too slow and tired, and hopes to hide instead of fleeing.
As if all that foliage is invisible, Metroid lunges straight for Pilot B, fangs open. It latches onto him, a giant leaf wrapped around Pilot B as he struggles and thrashes, just like the Metroid previously wrapped up in his parachute. We don’t see all of him, just glimpses of the limbs, the burnt-off foot, as Pilot B screams. The Metroid hovers into the air, effortlessly carrying B’s body within its maw as he hangs. The leaf goes dark and brittle; Pilot B stops thrashing, his legs beneath the armor frail now. Some of the armor slips off.
Dissatisfied, the Metroid shakes Pilot B’s body like a dog with a chew toy, or a dead animal, wondering it’s got any more life to it. Nope, nothing; The Metroid squeezes it one last time in the hopes of something more, and then tosses aside the corpse. The leaf disintegrates mid-throw as B’s body lands, and we get a shot of it close-up as it comes to a halt, dust sifting through the gaps in the armor, bones cracking and the body so, so thin.
Mother Brain knows, she has sensed both deaths. In orbit, the Space Pirate commander is asking his soldiers if they’ve sighted anymore intruders. Suddenly, Mother’s voice interrupts the transmission; Sweetly talking, she explains there are three. Two have died on the surface of Zebes, and the commander happily confirms that with the third in space, they’ve dealt with the situation.
In a condescending tone, Mother Brain admonishes the commander lightly, as if speaking to a child; Now, now, this is still not something to be proud about. Those intruders shouldn’t have gone this far to begin with; And now one of her children is stuck on the surface, someone needs to give them a ride back into orbit! Whose fault is that? She leads the poor commander with some demeaning questions.
With an unenthusiastic face, the commander apologizes to Mother. Mother Brain insists to him that they need to keep home nice and tidy; They can’t allow pests inside. Begrudgingly, the commander bows and confirms, Yes Mother, my apologies. Don’t be sorry, just be better, Mother happily reminds. She shuts off the screen. The commander has an awful face; He’d love to curse Mother Brain under his breath and kick something. But this is Mother; She’s always listening, they say. She will turn around and ask him to repeat that. The commander is reminded of his own frustrating mother. A bad taste is in his mouth.
Back on Daiban, no response from the saboteurs for a week now. The Federation generals in the meeting agree; It’s a bust. Dane quietly closes his eyes, exhaling; He had a feeling this would happen, it’s why the first three were just pilots selected by him and not elite soldiers, who would’ve been picked by General Alex Miles. Dane was not yet sure if he could risk ground troops until he knew it was possible to get them to Zebes’ caverns. The guilt is weighing on his shoulders, he sent these pilots in as test subjects, expendable guinea pigs.
Commander Adam Malkovich reluctantly suggests that they take into account their source’s suggestion; That she be the one to infiltrate Zebes for them, and assassinate Mother Brain. At the very least, the Federation doesn’t want to lose any more of their own, do they? Miles gets semantic, pointing out this ‘source’ was a Federation officer herself; Technically they’d still be losing one of their own if she fails, contrary to what she suggests.
But yes, Miles backs Adam, and the others begin to agree with this spark. So does Dane, taking responsibility for his initial skepticism towards the source’s capabilities; It is time to hire Samus Aran.
DBM publie un best-of des portraits d'anglophones de Côte-d'Or avec Wall Street English
DBM publie un best-of des portraits d’anglophones de Côte-d’Or avec Wall Street English
Depuis plusieurs années, DBM et DijonBeaune.fr font découvrir des anglophones liés au territoire, en partenariat avec le spécialiste de la formation en anglais. En voici un livret best of, disponible auprès de l’agence Wall Street English de Dijon.
Il y a deux ans, avec la complicité active du franchisé régional Wall Street English Pierre Doucet, DBM et DijonBeaune.fr partaient à la rencontre…
