I present neon genesis metroidgelion special thanks to @kosmonauttihai for giving me the idea to make ridley eva 1...
more au details under cut!
-instead of angels and moons or whatnot its just like phazon and leviathans ok
-after losing poor varia suit eva to phazon thus turning it into dark samus eva, samus had to pilot the faulty never working evil RIDLEY EVA...
-SURPRISINGLY the ridley eva works and samus achieves her highest sync ratio with it and no body knows why except gendobeak (ravenbeak gendo) bc virginia aran's soul is lingering around in there
-samus and ridley eva hate each other a lot but virginia is the glue holding them together which makes it so ridley eva has an instinct to protect samus and only sync with her so
-uh uh gandrayda, rundas, and ghor are all pilots too i hope to draw them as well !
-i plan to add a bunch of characters like maybe Ian or anthony as a stand in for toji?? If you've seen eva u all know how that goes lol
-adam as misato prolly but she seems too bubbly for him... ritsuko could be like madeline bergman question mark... magi system is mother brain??
-mother brain could work as eva too lwk if i make melissa a pilot....
The Metroid Prime series has introduced the internal workings of the Space Pirates and expanded on it in subsequent entries. However, it is largely agreed upon by groups with the Metroid community (myself included) that the Space Pirates are a faction made up of many species. After all, the biology of the different enemy types in the Prime series alone is wildly different from game to game, aside from a bipedal, hunched posture. It can be assumed, therefore, that any discrepancies from game to game when describing the inner workings of the Space Pirates to simply be the culture of those individual species. For instance, the Urtraghians have far more brutal forms of punishment than the forces seen on Tallon IV. Now that then begs the question.
What about the culture of the Zebesians?
This exploration will, admittedly, be full of conjecture and fanons that I enjoy, but I hope you will enjoy either way.
The name Zebesian seems a bit strange to those who know the inner workings of Metroid lore, specifically about the Chozo, who were the residents of planet Zebes before the Space Pirates stormed the planet. The two big schools of thought as to the name from a Watsonian perspective are either that the Zebesians were driven off of Zebes in years past during the Chozo’s warlike past or that the name comes from their settlement upon Zebes that essentially became the way most of the Galaxy thought about the planet.
While I prefer the latter explanation, the former explanation does have some basis to it. Some of Dread’s many murals depict Mawkin soldiers coming into conflict with the Zebesian Space Pirates and defeating them. It is certainly possible that this is how the Chozo first settled the world. There was once a time when the Thoha Chozo were on good terms with the Mawkin.
Still, from both a Watsonian and Doylist perspective, I prefer that the Zebesian name comes from their takeover of Zebes, likely the latest conquest of many. From throughout the series, the Chozo are not seen to have been particularly active in galactic politics during the age of the Galactic Federation, mostly being relegated to advising more public figures. They are rarely mentioned after their demise, outside of their ruins. Therefor, with the Chozo mostly being dead and buried, their world conquered by the feared Space Pirates, the limelight would then be cast onto that world as the source of the Metroid threat, thus leading people to call them the rulers of that world. It’s not exactly how I will be situating things in my own rewrite of the manga, but it does fit better from a purely canonical perspective. Furthermore, from a Doylist perspective, there is evidence to posit this same position. (Special thanks to @sepublic for pointing this out) The internal data for the Zebesian sprite refers to them as Batta, the Japanese word for grasshopper/locust. While this can be attributed to their hopping behavior, it also fits to see them surrounding a planet, consuming its resources, and leaving barren rock behind, with Zebes being their latest, and most successful, operation. The manga displays them descending onto worlds, massacring populations, and enslaving the survivors. The origin of Samus Aran’s adoption into the Chozo comes from them massacring the population of a colony in order to steal its main export wholesale.
The individuals we see in the manga are spiteful, remorseless, and cruel, happy to kill a child for fun. They also show fear and cowardice in the face of armed resistance from Federation officials, and Mother Brain describes them as inclined to capitulate to the highest power present. This cruel, despotic leadership style appears to be an inherent trait to Zebesian culture. Furthermore, the Space Pirates are displayed as having genetically altered themselves to withstand Zebes’s environment very soon after securing the world, suggesting an avid fascination with genetic manipulation, a trait that gets taken to the N’th degree in the Prime series, along with a fascination of mechanical augmentation. From Meta and Proteus Ridley, to the grafted metal implants of the Tallon IV pirates, to the exoskeleton apparatus used by the Urtraghians, the Space Pirates as a whole seem to love cybernetically augmenting themselves and their underlings.
One of my favorite fan interpretations of the Zebesians comes from @dappercritter and the fanfiction piece “No Other”. Quite frankly, I have to include the paragraph wherein the description of the Zebesian race lies.
“The chimeric splice-junkies who had the nerve to call themselves ‘Zebesians’ she wasn’t surprised by. Those ‘settler colonists’-a term which they use to feign altruism and keep the GDF from assaulting their new base, had always been a thorn in Samus’s side since they tried to take her and the Chozo’s old home by force. Of course, they’d come back for more at some point, even if they deserved every other beatdown.”
The Zebesians are described as “chimeric splice-junkies”, a term which I absolutely love for its descriptiveness and color. These guys love to juice themselves up on whatever science team has cooked up. They love genetic modifications, cybernetic implants, and anything to make themselves stronger and give them an edge in combat. The main villain of this story, Ganzer, is the apotheosis of a Zebesian. He has replaced his lobster claws with metal claws, he has wings on his back, chainsaw blades grafted to his arms, a shoulder mounted cannon, a visor in place of his eyes, extra armor over his exoskeleton, and even a reptilian tail. Additionally, there is an explanation here for the name of these Zebesians. These galactic jerks are not just genocidal maniacs, they are something far worse: lawyers. They have lawyered their way into exploiting the Federation’s rules of engagement. After all, orbital bombardment on a colony is illegal. So, as any good lawyer would do, they have designated their most valuable planet as their residential colony world. Doesn’t matter that they breed Metroids, produce weapons, and store their fleets there, cuz that’s where the children grow up, at least on paper.
Furhermore, given their distinctly crustacean design, I can imagine that their “splice-junky” lifestyle comes into play during a specific recurring period of their life; molting. When a crustacean molts, the new shell is soft and malleable for a time, in which time they are extremely vulnerable. Defensive claws and stingers are effectively useless, leaving them defenseless until their body hardens. This time could be perfect for Zebesians to how in the infusion tank to get ‘roided up on whatever DNA infusions they choose/have chosen for them, or to have cybernetic implants grafted into them, where the shell will then solidify and seal the implant on. You can just imagine some excited Zebesian chittering about how they ordered the new model of targeting armature, lamenting that they have to wait until the next molt to get it installed. It honestly opens up some room for a bit of downtime in their culture which I think could be explored further some time.
Hope you all enjoyed this one! I may make a similar post for some of the other Space Pirate varieties. I do have some unique fanons for the Urtraghians that could be cool to share. Let me know if you have any suggestions or fanons of your own!
Samus Aran is consistently depicted as tactical and stoic, which is cool, I respect it, but I feel like in an alternate universe she would be more bombastic and trigger-happy.
Like she enters a room with a locked door and her first idea is to shoot a missile at it to "solve the puzzle"; her ship is a giant replica of her own helmet, perfect for someone with an ego of similar size
Expanding on my already dumb Metroid: Planet-Bound idea, I have the roughest draft for a introduction:
[Samus Aran.. the Bounty Hunter well-known for her countless battles with the aliens known as the Metroids, as well as her encounters with the Space Pirates.
But before she was the Bounty Hunter… she was a lone survivor.
At the age of 16, Samus was a young Communications Officer working for the Galactic Federation. The crew she was assigned to was sent to investigate the disappearance of several Federation Soldiers sent to a Zombie Planet dubbed Argonis a few weeks ago.
But upon their arrival on Argonis, the ship was immediately attacked by the Space Pirates, the rest of the crew being either captured or killed by their hands. Samus managed to survive by hiding in the ventilation shaft until the invaders left.
With the crew separated, it’s up to Samus herself to rescue the captured members and foil the plans of the Space Pirates, all while learning to survive the danger of being bounded to a hostile planet.]
Metroid side of tumblr, tell me what you think of this, I request constructive criticism pls-
