Samus Aran
Samus Aran is a video game character created by Nintendo, and is the main protagonist in the Metroid series. She is a bounty hunter who wears an extensible body suit with a number of advanced technologies built into it. The original Metroid intentionally led players to believe she was male until the very end of the game, making a statement about gender roles in video games at a time when heroes were predominately male. Although Samus wears a full-body power suit throughout most of the Metroid series, it has become tradition to depict her in more revealing attire at the end of each game, often as a reward for completing the game quickly.
Stats
- Species: Human; was infused with Chozo blood as a child, later with Metroid DNA as an adult.
- Occupation: Space-faring bounty hunter, often employed by the Galactic Federation.
- Sex: Female.
- Age: Unknown; appears to be in mid-20s to early-30s.
- Homeworld: Presumably born on Earth colony K-2L, raised on Zebes.
- Hair color: Officially blonde, sometimes depicted as green, violet, or auburn in older materials.
- Eye color: Officially blue, sometimes depicted as green.
Whenever she goes on missions or anywhere that could be considered dangerous, she wears her Power Suit. It acts as a personal armor, and a built-in arm cannon allows her to fire powerful blasts of energy at her foes. The suit can also be fitted with various modular upgrades which augment Samus' natural abilities (see Items in the Metroid series).
Samus' height and weight are stated in the Metroid II instruction booklet and Super Metroid strategy guide, but whether they apply to Samus with or without her suit is unspecified but it can be concluded that they do include her armor:
- Height: 1.90m (6'3")
- Weight: 90kg (198lbs, 6oz)
Challenge of gender roles
Samus was one of the first active heroines in a video game, appearing at a time when other popular heroes, such as Mario and Link, were predominantly male and striving to rescue helpless princesses. Some games, such as Super Mario Bros. 2, added female playable characters, but these continued to exhibit exaggerated feminine characteristics. There would be few other active female heroines until Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, who many feminists found appalling for her extreme sexualization and unrealistic attire in a harsh environment.
While there are many female heroes today, a large majority of them have emulated Lara Croft's exaggerated sexuality to appeal to a predominantly male gaming community. Even Samus has been victim to this trend to some extent: several of the Metroid games portray her in somewhat revealing attire if one completes the game under certain time restrictions (see JUSTIN BAILEY) or during Samus' death animation (Super Metroid), and the Metroid Prime series has given her an occasionally visible face resembling that of a model. Nevertheless, she continues to earn praise as one of the most self-sufficient and realistic female role models in video games.
Name pronunciation
Samus' name has only been spoken aloud in two Nintendo games. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, the announcer refers to her as (IPA: [ˈsɔ mɪs]). However, in the Japanese and European versions of Metroid Prime, her name is pronounced ([ˈsa mɪs ˈɛɹ ɪn])[1]. The correct official pronunciation is currently unknown.
Biography
Template:Spoiler Samus Aran is the legendary bounty hunter who is well-known for defeating the Space Pirates and wiping out the dangerous Metroids. Though she was at first rumored to be a male cyborg, Samus revealed her true identity after she defeated the Space Pirates on Zebes. Her reputation grew as her reliability almost always guaranteed success in her hired jobs.
Her Zero mission
Samus was the daughter of two colonists (Rodney and Virgina Aran) on the Federation colony world K-2L. When she was quite young, the species known only as the Space Pirates destroyed the colony, leaving Samus as the sole survivor. A group of chozo picked up the distress signal from the colony, and took Samus with them to their home on planet Zebes. They raised her as their own, infusing her with their blood for her to gain their natural powers. In Metroid: Zero Mission, Samus has flashbacks to her childhood with the Chozo when she sees a mural depicting a chozo warrior, and also as a sequence of pictures in a connectivity bonus between Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission.
Eventually, she had left Zebes of her own accord with the power suit, seeking full military training in the Galactic Federation. However, her military career didn't last after the death of her commanding officer, and she soon left to become a bounty hunter. As she sought to make a name for herself, the Space Pirates attacked Zebes seeking more information about the Metroids they had recently taken from Federation custody, and wiped out the Chozo race from the planet.
Samus heard of this and was sent in by the Federation as a last resort to finish off the Pirates and stop their production of Metroids. Samus succeeded, but as she escaped the time bomb detonated by the Mother Brain in her final throes, she was shot down by a fleet of Pirates led by their backup leader, Mecha-Ridley. In the struggle she lost her Power Suit and was forced to fight her way to her old home in Chozodia. There, Samus was tested by an ancient Chozo shrine, and given her new suit with the recognizable shoulder pads. She then defeated the auxiliary Pirate leader and escaped the Pirates' Mothership.
Hunting down the Pirates
After her success in defeating the Space Pirates on Zebes, knowledge of the Metroids' power spread through the galaxy. Leaving Zebes behind, Samus traveled the galaxy to seek another job, coming across the distress signal of a wrecked space station. Upon investigation, she had discovered it was being used as a storage and research station by the Space Pirates to study a new material known as phazon. However, it was on the verge of destruction due to an accident with one of the stored creatures.
Samus escaped the station to the planet Tallon IV in pursuit of Meta Ridley, discovering the ruins of a Chozo civilization, destroyed by the poisonous phazon that came from a mysterious meteor that crashed into the planet an undetermined time ago. The Space Pirates, lead by Meta Ridley, built a base above and below the surface of the planet, testing phazon not only on their own, but also on metroids. The Chozo foresaw Samus' arrival, and knowing they would perish before she arrived, left behind the tools she would need to heal the planet and let their souls rest. With the defeat of the Space Pirates and the destruction of Metroid Prime, Samus left the planet so that it could recover. However, Metroid Prime did not go quietly, having absorbed the Phazon suit upgrade from Samus before its death.
Echoes
Some time later, which was not given a definite date, the Galactic Federation had contacted Samus, hiring her for a search and rescue mission. Federation troops pursuing a pirate vessel had gone missing on an alien world and Samus was to seek out any survivors. Tracking their last known signal, she came across the strange planet covered by a dark cloud called Aether. Upon entering the atmosphere, her ship was struck by a powerful burst of lightning, disabling it and forcing her to crash land in a small cave somewhere on the planet. Exploration of the alien world revealed that the crashed marines had created a base, that was apparently short-lived, their forces decimated by never before seen creatures. As she worked through the remains of the makeshift base, she was attacked by the animated remains of a squad of federation soldiers. Soon, she came across a few stores of phazon, and a creature in blue draining the phazon, nearly identical to her in appearance. This creature was Dark Samus.
It led her on a chase through a gate to a darker world, where she was attacked by strange creatures and had some of the equipment from her Power Suit stolen, and forced back into Light Aether immediately afterward. When Samus had escaped to the surface, she found the wrecked Federation ship, as well as the remains of the soldiers. The Ing revealed themselves to her and attacked. When she had defeated them and regained her missile launcher from among the Federation's equipment, she made her way to a structure much like a temple in the center.
This was when she had met the Luminoth, a species of beings that originally called the planet home, but now hid away in stasis pods until the day the Ing and Dark Aether would be no more. From their leader, she had learned that because of a meteorite crashing into the planet, strange creatures had formed called the Ing. A dark half of the planet was also formed, creating dimensional rifts that threatened to tear the planet in half, while poisoning anything organic that ventured in. They enlisted Samus' aid to save their world, by pushing back the Ing and recovering the stolen light energy from Dark Aether. However, this would not be an easy task.
She traveled the lands of Aether often warping to its dark twin while the leader of the Ing, the Emperor Ing, continued to lead the attacks against Samus, and Dark Samus continued to hinder her path in any way it could. She would gather weapons and tools used by the Luminoth to fight the Ing, in the process encountering the Space Pirates and their failing Phazon mining expedition, and eventually regained her stolen equipment from certain ing that had learned to use them.
When she had managed to restore the 3 temples of light in Aether, the Luminoth gave her their ultimate creation, infusing her Power Armor with pure light, giving her the protection she would need to face Emperor Ing. After Samus defeated the Emperor Ing and recovered the last of Dark Aether's planetary energy, the planet grew unstable. However, Dark Samus refused to let her leave, and though weakened, attempted to destroy Samus. The real Samus prevailed by using her charge beam to redirect Dark Samus' phazon attacks, and quickly escaped from Dark Aether before it disappeared entirely.
With their world safe, the Luminoth were released from their stasis pods, and gave their thanks to Samus as she returned their light power to them. Her ship had finished its self repair systems and she soon departed. The Metroid Prime life form proved to be resiliant as ever, however, as while Samus was departing blue particles resembling Phazon began assembling in the atmosphere of Aether, eventually taking the form of Dark Samus.
Mission: Eradicate the Metroid species
With the Federation now aware of what metroids were capable of, they hired Samus yet again. This time, they directed her to the uninhabited planet SR-388. It was this planet where it was believed the Chozo created the Metroids. Samus had to fight through the natural beasts and life that had become aggressive as of late due to the activity of the Metroid queen, as well as alter the environment to continue on her quest.
As she gathered more tools and weapons, she began to fight her way through the swarms of metroids to face the queen, and in a difficult fight, eventually destroyed her. As she began to leave, she came across one last metroid egg that hatched just as she arrived. The newborn metroid mistook Samus for its mother and swarmed around her affectionately. Samus couldn't bring herself to destroy the confused metroid hatchling, despite it being the very last one on the planet. So she took it with her to a Federation space colony to have it researched.
A return to the past
Very shortly after Samus left, the space colony was attacked. When she had returned, she found the researchers dead at their stations and most of the systems down. As she searched the colony, she found the hatchling, and Ridley. There was a brief confrontation, during which Samus discovered she was underpowered to defeat this new Ridley. It escaped before she could recover the hatchling metroid, and the self-destruct systems were set off.
In the aftermath of the station's destruction, Ridley escaped to the closest planet, leading Samus right behind him. It was the former homeworld of the Chozo: Zebes. Samus wandered the ruins of the planet, still charred and decaying from the time bomb the Mother Brain had detonated years before, discovering the ruins of the old Space Pirate base that she had explored years before. For some reason, it still had power. With the recovery of her old Morph Ball ability, full power was mysteriously restored to the facility. She discovered then that the Space Pirates had returned to salvage the remains of their base and begin their work again in secret.
Once more, Samus traveled the planet above and below the surface, searching through areas that were newly formed in the passing years for the metroid hatchling, as well as the wreckage of the pirate Mothership from Samus' last visit to the planet. Ancient weapons remained buried, protected by the guardians of the Space Pirates, but one by one, they fell, until only the Space Pirates' revived leader remained: Mother Brain.
On the way through their planetside HQ, she found dried out remains of monsters and Space Pirates alike, completely drained of their life force. She was then attacked by a massive metroid which started to drain of her life. It stopped before killing her and released her from its hold, floating a bit confused as if it recognized her, before running off. Samus managed to get to a recharge station, taking the time to recover before seeking out Mother Brain's chamber. The laser and lava trap having been restored, Samus fought her way through and shattered Mother Brain's case, laying waste to the leader to destroy her once and for all.
Or so she thought. The containment case was destroyed as Mother Brain rose with a new exo-skeleton. Gigantic and fierce, Samus' weapons had no effect on her. Mother Brain poured its mental power into a beam, which may have destroyed Samus completely had it not been for the interference of that massive metroid, who attacked Mother Brain and drained her energy. Using the energy stolen from Mother Brain, the Metroid clung to Samus and began to transfer the energy into her body. Mother Brain refused to be put down though, and when she had regenerated, she began her attack, this time on the Metroid. With Samus' health restored, the Metroid prepared to attack Mother Brain again, but one powerful blow struck the weakened Metroid down, destroying it completely. Infused with powerful energy stolen from the Mother Brain and feeling the sorrow of a mother, she focused the new energy into her cannon, unleashing a powerful blast that Mother Brain could not defend against.
The final blow was struck, and Mother Brain was reduced to ash. Her death set off the self-destruct system, leaving Samus with only a few minutes to escape. With seconds to spare, saving the animals that had helped her along the way, she made it back to her ship and launched into space once more. This time, the destruction erupted straight from the core, and the entire planet had been completely destroyed, leaving nothing but dust in the wake of the explosion as Samus took off into space with a chance to finally rest.
The new threat
Time passed, and the Federation once more called upon Samus' services. A seemingly simple assignment; escort researchers through SR-388. With the Metroids eradicated, there was nothing left to control the powerful X Parasite. They attacked, with Samus doing her best to fend them off. Samus was defenseless against the parasite and was infected. An evacuation of the planet was made, quickly bringing Samus off of the planet to a nearby Federation research station.
Before becoming infected, Samus did not have time to remove her Power Suit, which was still physically fused with her body. Doctors could only surgically remove portions of it. The parasite was gaining control little by little. In desperation, the doctors found that an infusion of Metroid DNA could not only resist the parasite, but also kill off the parasite completely.
Samus made a rapid recovery, but was left permanently infused with the cell structure of the Metroid, the very species she had hunted to extinction. The Federation gave her a new space ship, provided that she followed the orders of her new commanding officer, an artificial intelligence built into the ship's computer. She nicknamed the computer "Adam", in remembrance of a previous CO she served under during her time in the Federation.
Samus was immediately given a new mission: to investigate the cause of a mysterious explosion back on the space station. When she arrived, a strange power surge prevented her from leaving. Samus still had a job to do, and began to explore the dead space station under the guidance of Adam. Then came the frightening discovery: The X Parasite that had infected her Power Suit was now controlling the remains of her suit, containing all of the strength she had when she last left Zebes. It had set off a Power Bomb in the lab containing the X parasites, freeing them. She was trapped on the station with a rapidly reproducing parasite that controlled all of the systems as well as her most powerful armor.
However, she was not without hope. It was discovered that the Metroid cells infused within Samus could absorb X-Parasites to heal her or increase her abilities (much like the Chozo upgrades for her Power Suit). With a new hope, and the careful guidance of Adam, Samus sought to halt the spread of the parasite. With strength comes weaknesses. Infused with the Metroid cells, which made her vulnerable to ice, the Parasite mimicking her, now dubbed the SA-X, sought to destroy her at every possible turn. Shortly, however, the tables began to turn, and after seeking out the SA-X, Samus stumbled upon a terrible secret: The Federation had cloned and been breeding Metroids. On the way out, the SA-X had sought out its natural predator, and Samus escaped from this small research lab, jettisoning it from the station along with the Metroids and SA-X inside. It was then she found out the SA-X had replicated itself, and there were as many as ten throughout the station. Samus decided it would be best to destroy the station entirely. After realizing Adam's AI was, in fact, the real Adam's personality and memories, Samus discovered a way to totally destroy the station with Adam, by setting its course to plow into SR-388's atmosphere and self-desruct, vaporizing the planet. Once she had enough strength, she began to fight back against an SA-X in the control room. After a barely claimed victory, Samus set the station's course to crash into the planet, against the wishes of the Federation.
When she started to return to her ship, one of the Metroids which had escaped the lab, now a mature Omega Metroid, blocked her path. Unable to defeat it in her present form, the X Parasite that inhabited her Power Suit fused with Samus' Fusion Suit, giving her full power to take out the Omega Metroid. With the Metroid destroyed, Samus, Adam and the animals from the station's habitats escaped into space before the station exploded.
From here Samus's fate is uncertain. It is possible that the Federation may now view Samus, once one of their greatest assets, as a major threat. As for Samus, she is unlikely to forget the Federation's numerous transgressions (experimenting with Metroids and other risky bio-weaponry). So far no further installments in the series have taken place, although it is not unlikely that this post-Fusion Samus will make another appearance.
The rumored Metroid Dread is said to be a direct sequel, but no official evidence of the title's existence has appeared as of yet.
Metroid games and cameo appearances
By order of US release:
- Metroid (1986 - NES)
- Nintendo's Tetris (1989 - NES) (Cameo)
- Metroid II: Return of Samus ( 1991 - Game Boy)
- Super Metroid (1994 - SNES)
- Super Mario RPG (1996 - SNES) (Cameo)
- Kirby Super Star (1996 - SNES) (Cameo)
- Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1998 - SNES) (Cameo)
- Super Smash Bros. (1999 - N64)
- Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001 - GameCube)
- Metroid Prime (2002 - GameCube)
- Metroid Fusion (2002 - Game Boy Advance)
(Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were released on the same day) - WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ (2003) (Contains a microgame based on NES Metroid)
- Metroid: Zero Mission (2004 - Game Boy Advance)
- Metroid (2004 - Game Boy Advance) (a port of the original, see Classic NES Series)
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004 - GameCube)
- Metroid Prime: Hunters (2005 - Nintendo DS)
- WarioWare: Touched! (2005 - Nintendo DS) (Contains a microgame loosely based on NES Metroid)
Samus in the Super Smash Bros. series
In the game Super Smash Bros., Samus is a heavy aerial fighter, her weight being exceeded only by heavyweights like Donkey Kong. Her flying kicks are among the most powerful in the game. In addition, she can use an array of projectiles inspired by her weapons from the Metroid series, including the Power Beam, Screw Attack, and Morph Ball Bombs.
Samus was changed to a mediumweight in Super Smash Bros. Melee, with improved speed, agility, and stamina. She has also been given her standard missile and a less powerful homing missile as new attacks. She is considered to be a very dangerous character in the hands of an expert.
Metroid movie rumors
There was a highly popular rumor floating around for a time that Halle Berry was set to be cast in the role of Samus in a possible live-action movie based off of the Metroid series. These rumors, however, have been proven to be completely false. No studio has even mentioned interest in it at all, and Nintendo has said absolutely nothing on the subject. As of now, there are no plans in the near or far future to create a film adaptation of Metroid in sight, although John Woo has recently acquired the rights to make a Metroid film. And in an issue of Nintendo Power magazine, a fan asked if the rumor was true, with one of the writers responding "it's no hoax!". Whether or not it will come to fruition is uncertain.
Oddly, there is an entry on IMDB for a Metroid movie in 2006, with cast, producer or director not specified yet. [2][3]
Other appearances
Samus was also a semi-regular character in the Captain N: The Game Master comic books from Valiant Comics, published as part of the Nintendo Comics System. In these comics, Samus, who did not appear in the animated series was based on (even though Mother Brain was the show's primary villain; Jeffrey Scott claimed in an interview that he didn't feature Samus in the cartoon because he didn't know who she was), filled in the void left by Simon Belmont and Mega Man, who did not appear in the comic due to the characters being owned by Konami and Capcom, respectively. In these stories, Samus has romantic feelings for Kevin Keene, despite his own affections for Princess Lana. However, as she states in the story "Breakout", she'd prefer to win Kevin's affections fairly.
Samus also starred in her own comic story, apparently set in the same continuity, titled "Deceit du Jour"; it was the only ten-page story to have the Metroid umbrella title. In this story, Samus duels with another bounty hunter, Bigtime Brannigan, whom Mother Brain has hired to capture her, and who claims to be just as efficient as Samus. In the end, Samus proves her superiority by sabotaging her own gun before handing it over to Bigtime. When Bigtime attempts to kill her with it later on, it explodes, covering Samus' escape.
References
- Rag, Koran (2004). "Metroid Prime Chozo Lore FAQ". Accessed July 4, 2005.
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