Something I neglected to show during my first post about Experiment Z-57 is the concept art for its environmental body double in Dairon. I couldn't fit it into the post due to Tumblr's image limit only being 10 pictures per post, but here it is: Pages 114 and 115 from the Metroid Mission Logs.
While I'm here, I'd like to share a few frames from Z-57's animation set that I took screenshots of for reference purposes. Now that Tumblr allows us to put 30 images into one post, I can make posts as long as I want! More images for everyone!
Z-57 is firing a beam in these shots.
Here are some extra screenshots of the Dissected Corpse for good measure. This particular view of the creature's face never made it into the original post because of the old image limit.
Ever notice how Z-57's eyes are smaller and rounder than Corpius'? Corpius has these sort of elongated, oblong-form eyes (perhaps indicating that it's a wild type or unaltered specimen?), while the Experiment looks… domesticated somehow? Corpius' eyes look like they've grown into those uneven, craggy grooves it has for a skull-face, but the Experiment gives me different vibes. Round, calculated eyes that look like the face was carved specifically for them. Corpius' eyes bulge from its face in a particular way, and they're arranged unevenly.
If these two met face-to-face, would Corpius mistake the Experiment for a different animal altogether? Or if it were capable of sapient thought, would it consider the Experiment some ghoulish freak of nature, like a simulacrum of its kind? Like "I don't know when that thing went into that big building, but whatever it is, it came back wrong".
Maybe round eyes are a characteristic of younger specimens, who knows: I'm just spitballing here. I'm not sure I ever got around to talking about the eyes in the original set of posts, but they were featured in my venn diagram.
More Z-57 under the cut! I took all these screenshots, why not share them with other artists?
It's roaring in this set.
Best quality: its wiggles.
Experiment Z-57 is preparing to fire a counterable beam in this next round of screenshots.
When I made the original posts, I had to combine a few images to save space: There's one image that combines two in-game screenshots of the Dissected Corpse's room before and after the X are released with a shot of the boss, showing that they're the same monster. I'll deliver them here separately. As a treat.
Bonus: Corpius T-pose
I'm gonna go back to taking screenshots now: have a nice day.
With a good chunk of comparisons out of the way, I'd like to dive even deeper.
Navigation:
Dissected Creature
Experiment Z-57
Corpius
Comparisons, Part 1: Let's Talk About Legs
Comparisons, Part 2
2023 update: extras
The point of this post is to examine the similarities and differences between a few anatomical elements from the beasts we've covered so far. I'm presenting observations on things that people may or may not bother to compare otherwise, because I'm a nerd who enjoys examining every last detail on 3D models. Maybe somebody will find my brain spew interesting, or perhaps the information would be useful in some sort of fanwork.
I wanted to start off by looking at the Chozo Archives gallery rewards. Particularly, the 100% completion reward for Dairon. In this image, we see Quiet Robe standing before a smattering of screens in front of a tube. The tube is filled with a pink substance, and Experiment Z-57 is wriggling about as it floats within. The creature appears to be a juvenile in this image, with a long, wriggly body and lanky limbs. Its carapace appears underdeveloped and not nearly as noticeable as it is on the adult that we see in-game.
I wanted to use this post to compare the baby to Corpius and the experiment as we see it in-game (there's new information unrelated to the baby as well, but for this first part, we'll focus on the baby).
Something interesting to note is that at first glance, Experiment Z-57's X form more closely resembles the juvenile in the tank than the corpse we see in Dairon. The infant has a long, wriggly tail and its abdomen doesn't appear to be obscured and encumbered by its carapace. It has a snake-like body with two sets of legs attached.
Also of note is the fact that boss-57 has bony spines sticking out of its back just like the infant.
If you look very closely at its thick lower body (above the length of the tail), the infant Z-57 in the gallery image has a carapace, but the edges of the shell's segments are shaped more like the pointed plates on Corpius' tail than the plates on corpse-57's rounded shell. The infant's tail also ends in two points, a bit more reminiscent of Corpius' clubbed scorpion barb than than the corpse's single-pointed stinger.
The baby also has stripes, which may be either body markings or representative of the segments of its growing carapace, which could possibly have been very soft at that life stage. The spikes on the baby's elbows are also consistent with boss Z-57's anatomy, as are the scutes on its wrists.
Also curious is the fact that the juvenile appears to lack the stilted pair of legs present on both other iterations of Experiment Z-57 and Corpius, but they could just be hidden from our view in the gallery image. Maybe the pup's third pair of legs is tucked beneath its chest? Below is an image of Experiment Z-57 with the wiggly pair of noodle arms hidden.
In any case, Experiment Z-57's X-form more closely resembles the infant in the gallery image in terms of body shape. They've both got that spaghetti noodle body type, like a worm with legs.
Something else I'd like to mention is the 100% completion reward for Ghavoran. The image shows a group of Chozo warriors surrounding the corpse of a beast that appears to be the same species as Corpius. A shirtless warrior stands triumphant atop the kill wearing a Chozo power suit from the waist down (leg greaves and talon caps; note how the unarmored talons are black and curved, but the armored talons of the feet and the fully armored soldiers are thicker and white with a curved pyramid shape).
This could be a hunting expedition, or the shirtless individual could be undergoing a trial of some kind. We could say a lot about this image, but I'd like to focus on the dead animal.
The hunted specimen in this image bears an obvious resemblance to Corpius. The setting leads me to believe this is another wild specimen of the same species. It has stilt legs with dewclaws, the bright blue line running from the middle of its jaw to its torso is consistent with the line on Corpius' side, the amount of teeth and their arrangement is consistent, so is the shape of the tail and the flesh at the base of the tail. Additionally, the creature appears to have a set of exposed ribs beneath its torso, hidden as they are behind its limp foreleg and the soldier in the foreground.
There are a few differences between Corpius and this specimen, but nothing too significant. For example, the beast above appears to have bioluminescent blue spots and stripes in some places on its body. If the Chozo hunted these in Ghavoran, a location that has largely been left untouched by civilization, it's probably safe to assume the beast in the gallery painting is at least unmodified.
Corpius has a teal stripe going down its body from the corner of its jaw in the same place the gallery beast's luminescent stripe trails out from. However, Corpius' stripe is less visible because the color difference between its body and the stripe isn't quite as drastic as the difference in hue on the concept art.
Now that we've introduced the tertiary gallery elements, I'd like to compare them to the models we've covered. Corpius and the specimen in the Ghavoran gallery image both have those two-toed stilts. The juvenile in Dairon's gallery image appears to be lacking them, but the Dissected Creature's second (middle) pair of legs consists of one-toed stilts.
One trait Experiment Z-57's X-Form shares with the Ghavoran gallery beast is scuted legs. The Ghavoran beast's legs differ from Corpius' in that there are overlapping scales covering the length of the leg leading up to its claws. Experiment Z-57's boss form shares this quality.
I find the resemblance between Z-57's X-form and the juvenile in the Archives fascinating. The immense physical differences between the experiment's corpse and the X parasite that eats it makes a show of the fact that the X don't just copy their prey's appearance, they absorb its DNA. In Cataris, Experiment Z-57 is displaying the physical traits of its host at an earlier life stage.
This brings up a few more questions: does the X parasite actively choose which traits to express based on preference, or is it a matter of what is more functionally advantageous?
Regardless, I'd like to call something else to your attention. It's been a good, long month since my last Z-57 post, and I've finally found the asset I've been looking for to complete my comparisons.
Meet this bug, who is part of an object called "chozobaseasset04".
This bug has purple eyes, quite the opposite of our Corpius and Corpius-adjacent beasts' ocular organs. But there are several traits here that I want to really focus on. Specifically, the rest of the bug.
I posit that this bug's DNA was spliced with a member of Corpius' species (and perhaps another animal) to create Experiment Z-57.
Everything is there: the shell, the color of the shell, the stinger, everything. The singular pair of stilt legs on the dissected corpse is nigh-identical to the bug's, but adapted with the Corpius monster's traits. The stealth hunter's genes are expressed in the stilt legs with the singular knee horn and the lack of a complete exoskeletal covering.
I can't pretend to understand how genetic mix 'n match operations work, but it makes sense to me from an aesthetic and contextual standpoint. The Dissected Creature's second pair of legs resembles bug legs because they are bug legs. This abomination to the laws of nature is a mish-mash of genetic traits that shouldn't exist in conjunction with each other.
I don't have anything smart to say about the Experiment's construction, I just want to put forth the similarities between Bug On Table and the Dissected Creature.
Here's the concept art for Table With Bug to drive home the idea it had some involvement in genetic experiments.
I've been looking for Table With Bug for ages under the assumption that at least one of its contents was going to make it into the name, and now that I've found it under a generic name, I'm foaming at the mouth. Everything in this post before the bug shows up was written on May 7th, 2022, and then I got sick for a week.
I can't remember half the things I was gonna say about eyes and teeth a month ago. Frankly, I'm just glad I could bring Table With Bug to the discussion.
