Samus Aran from Metroid: Zebes Invasion Order (a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book released exclusively in Japan in 1986)
Wanted to draw Samus from Metroid: Zebes Invasion Order again, because she's cute and there isn't enough fanart of her. A "canon" version of her with black hair is also pretty neat.
Where is the Wrecked Ship in Metroid: Zero Mission?
Super Metroid and the original Metroid for the NES share their setting: the fortress planet of Zebes. While the first Metroid game only allowed players to explore its underground areas, Super Metroid introduced a couple of areas set on the surface of Zebes: Crateria and the Wrecked Ship. When the original Metroid was remade for the Game Boy Advance as Metroid: Zero Mission, areas from Super Metroid were added to the map.
For example, in the original Metroid, Samus leaves Zebes via a long vertical shaft that leads to the surface after defeating Mother Brain. In Super Metroid, Samus enters the underground of Zebes via this same shaft via a cave in Crateria. In Zero Mission, this cave on the surface was added to the escape sequence following the defeat of Mother Brain, as can be seen in the images below.
[Above images from Metroid and Super Metroid taken from NESmaps.com and SNESmaps.com]
[Above map is from Zero Mission]
The Wrecked Ship appears to be missing at first glance however, so what is up with that?
The Wrecked Ship's location
In Super Metroid, the Wrecked Ship is located in the east of Crateria, as can be seen in the map included with Super Metroid's manual.
A conclusion some may jump to is that the Wrecked Ship is the remains of the Space Pirate Mother Ship. This purple vessel lands in the east of Crateria during the events of Zero Mission and Samus explores it after defeating Mother Brain. It explodes after she is done. However, this does not appear to be the case as the Mother Ship as a whole appears to be too far east and it was explicitly denied by Metroid producer Yoshio Sakamoto on the Japanese Zero Mission website:
Question: "On the Space Pirate Mother Ship, there was a bipedal working robot that couldn't attack. Maybe it's the same type of working robot that appeared in Super Metroid? If that is the case, will the Space Pirate Mother Ship that exploded at the end become the Wrecked Ship that appears in Super Metroid, Phantoon's stage? Please tell me."
Sakamoto: "That type of working robot is a standard and integral part of spaceships of this era, so I consider it to be the same type as the ones that appeared in Super Metroid. However, the Mother Ship and Super Metroid's Wrecked Ship are two entirely different settings."
So, where is the Wrecked Ship in Zero Mission? An area resembling it does in-fact appear in the game, although it is small. It is located between Crateria and the Space Pirate Mother Ship.
Superficially, this area also has similar aesthetics to the Wrecked Ship from Super Metroid, though they still look distinct due to the two games' different artstyles.
[Zero mission on the left, Super Metroid on the right]
To further drive the connection home, room you enter this area in Zero Mission from is also highly similar to the entrance area of the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid in its layout.
[Above map is from Zero Mission]
[Above map is from Super Metroid, taken from SNESmaps.com]
Clear effort was made in Zero Mission to parallel areas from Super Metroid, though they also have differences. Part of this is due to artstyle as mentioned before, but also due to potential in-universe changes. The area outside the Wrecked Ship is in the open air in Super Metroid while in Zero Mission it is in a cave. There are also far fewer Chozo Ruins on the surface in Super Metroid. If one looks at the map of Zero Mission, it also becomes apparent that the Wrecked Ship area is located under the Chozodia Ruins.
At the end of Zero Mission, the Space Pirate Mother Ship explodes and as can be seen on the above map, it is situated right next to the Chozodia Ruins. It is possible that the explosion blew up the ruins, exposing the Wrecked Ship buried underneath, and also the caves in Crateria.
Phantoon and the lore of the ship
There is one weird aspect though given that these areas are the same, as in Zero Mission, the ship seems functional and is buzzing with the energy-based Atomic enemies. Meanwhile, in Super Metroid, the ship's electricity is not functioning and all Atomics inside are sealed until the defeat of the boss Phantoon. What happened to the ship?
The answer lies within Phantoon, who is a ghost like being who was generated from the evil thoughts of Mother Brain according to the Japanese manual of Super Metroid:
"Phantoon
(Boss of the Wrecked Ship)
Mother Brain’s consciousness has resulted in an entity. Its evil telepathy has demonized the surrounding spirits and stopped the ship’s functions."
-Japanese Super Metroid manual
This entity may have spawned due to Mother Brain's defeat in Zero Mission. It is after all nowhere to be found in that game and also wasn't one of the high-ranking Space Pirates in charge of guarding Tourian, their command center, in Zero Mission while he is in Super Metroid. The manual, when discussing the enemies found in the Wrecked Ship, also confirms it was Phantoon who drained the ship of its energy:
"The Wrecked Ship has been shut down by the floating ghost, Phantoon."
-Super Metroid manual
The Covern found in the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid meanwhile are the spirits it has whipped into a frenzy, explaining their absence in Zero Mission:
"These souls of shipwrecked creatures turn into evil spirits that wrap themselves around intruders."
-Super Metroid manual
As an aside, the Covern are the souls of the ones who crashed into Zebes in the first place, the Chozo who first settled on the planet according to the Super Metroid manual. This would thus also mark the first physical appearance of the Chozo in the series, long before the first living on-screen Chozo seen in Metroid Dread or even the Chozo Ghosts in the first Metroid Prime.
Dread it… run from it… destiny arrives all the same. Or rather, lesbians, bird people, and pirates. The series kinda just grabbed onto me out of seemingly nowhere at the beginning of March. Resisted the urge at first as a whole lot of series have disappointed me but, man, this fits all the niches for me. Great female protagonist, lost civilization tropes, pirates, galactic politics, galaxy threatening parasites. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t dive in sooner. To speak about the learning Chozo bit, it’s a slow process for me. Spring break is coming up, so I might take that opportunity to expedite the process then.
Mostly, however, I’m gonna share some more token details from my Metroid AU. Granted, I may be jumping the gun, as I haven’t gotten an opportunity to actually play a Metroid game, so perhaps I’m not the best gal to write a story on the matter. But the world building is fun. Without further ado, I will now proceed to rant about actual tidbits from the AU.
1. Ala the manga, Samus does have a slight telepathic bond between her two Chozo blood donors, Grey Voice and Raven Beak. However, due to hardly ever seeing Raven Beak, she does not recognize him. He appears in dreams though, in which she describes him as “the man with the broken face”. Yes, I’m going with his beak being a prosthetic. In any case, in the rare few times Samus dreams of this man with the broken face, he simply tells her to come find him. With time, however, Samus writes the dreams off as just that, dreams.
2. Ridley’s moniker of The Cunning God of Death is taken to another level. While he is well aware that he has no supernatural power or dominion, he styles himself as a god. In his speeches to his underlings, he proclaims the masses they will slaughter as “the mortals”, with his personal kill squad being known as The Revenants. His propensity to survive the unsurvivable helps cement this image in both the eyes of the pirates he controls, and the enemies who hear tales of his crimes.
3. While this may be controversial, the whole term of Space Pirates will be vastly expanded upon. As opposed to one great monolith of a faction, there will be many factions and sub factions jockeying for power in the lawless regions of space. Ridley and (upon the invasion of Zebes) Mother Brain’s faction are known as the Glaxamore. Additionally, membership into these various Space Pirate factions is not particularly restricted by race. There are a great many human and elfan pirates, in Glaxamore and beyond. One such human pirate will be a ship captain in the fleet surrounding Zebes, post invasion.
4. Back during Samus’s teenage years on Zebes, she and Old Bird would play pranks on Grey Voice. One such instance that I am itching to write, if for no other reason than my own entertainment, is when the snuck an Iono Feria (peaceful creature, once again, from the Manga), into Grey Voice’s personal study in the middle of the night, much to his fright and frustration when he woke up the next morning.
5. To speak more about Samus in particular, I wanted to dip more into the character-at-rest portion of her personality. While she is still a loner, she does make use of that time to improve herself beyond her ability to fight and survive. For one thing, she meditates. She tries a variety of different techniques, both human and Chozo, in order to commune with nature. This pursuit was one Old Bird passed onto her. Another thing she inherited from the Chozo is an accent! Samus and the Chozo speak English with a very distinct accent, which is slightly comparable to Greek or Spanish. I may pitch in some voice acting to show what I mean at some point, but not yet. Lastly, in addition to power suit and zero suit, another staple of her wardrobe is a Chozo poncho, with ornate patterning and a very earthy color palette. She often wears it during meditation sessions or when she simply wants to chill.
And that will be all for now. If you guys are interested in hearing more tidbits of this AU, I would be happy to post more. For now, however, I will leave it at this.
As per my last art post. I had a very vivid image and needed to illustrate it.
"wait you were my dad's tall "friend". like this whole time. you could have been a cool stepdad and you actively chose not to engage???"
"i brought you gifts"
"ok"
"i didn't come often because i had things to do and mother brain didn't like having me over"
"wait was mother brain like. homophobic???"
"no she just didn't like not being able to follow us everywhere"
"???"
"I had a fully dressed vessel with armed guards and a dining hall, and your father had a taste for quality mosik.* Foreign AI was forbidden aboard the premises."