Imagine if Luz’s coming out scene had been a *little* different…

Shoutout to @marstectomy for this comm! They did an amazing job and they’re still open for commissions, so I’d recommend checking them out!

Bonus:

Hmm you know what. If I play with this redone version of Sylux’s story, it could be fun to make the “mystery” of the Psy-Bots turning rogue into an actual twist.

Let’s have an Aberax commander who survived the battle on Cylosis, they surrendered at the end but somehow managed to escape by the time Beyond begins. They’re delusional and leading a pirate cell’s raid for a mysterious artifact, desperate for anything to salvage the group.

Samus squares off against them as they claim vengeance over that battle, which Samus confesses she barely recalls. The Aberax is pissed and is defeated (yet alive) without a Mochtroid showing up because there’s no Mochtroids at all, I’m cutting out the Mochtroid storyline because it did nothing and having it persist when the last Metroid is currently supposed to be some DNA aboard the BSL feels wrong.

Sylux crashes the party by firing from the Delano 8. The battle transitions into a direct face-off as the Delano 8 is shot down, Sylux shows off new upgrades such as spinning (They’re totally not plagiarizing the Vhozon), flying, nanite missiles, etc. It comes down to a Western stand-off and both fire.

Samus hits Sylux, the blast piercing right through their body and seemingly killing them. Sylux’s shot misses and strikes the artifact and well the rest is history.

Samus arrives at the entrance to Volt Forge and then Chrono Tower’s shields go up as she gets flashes of that battle on Cylosis, and then the Psy-Bots show up! Samus mentions this to Myles when he radios in shortly after, using her detective work to guess that the Aberax must’ve survived and entered Chrono Tower after she left, taking control. They’re so salty Samus forgot that they’re now telepathically beaming their memory of the battle into her brain to reactivate her own memories.

Merging Sylux Fanon and Canon

            I keep having fun with different Sylux scenarios in my head and now I’m thinking of another backstory that merges both my fanon motivations for Sylux (the disdain for a government that enabled a non-official caste system) and Samus blowing up a weapon after Sylux ignored the Federation’s orders:

            Cylosis is a planet that doesn’t like the Federation for again, the same reasons I elaborated with my Sylux fanon. When it tried to secede, the Federation (during its Old Army era) deployed one of its client races (the Tanamaar Pirates) to suppress and control them. Sometime later, a people’s rebellion overthrew the Old Army, and Cylosis took advantage of the chaos to secede. The new government that was being hastily jury-rigged together took a solid look at Cylosis and decided, Let’s just let them have this.

            In the meantime, some of the Federation’s client races also take the opportunity to invest in the Space Pirate PMC. Castor Dane is born but loses his family at a young age to the Space Pirates. Sometime after that, the human who’d go on to be called Sylux is born and winds up under the care of the people of Cylosis. I dunno how or why, probably another Space Pirate massacre. They were the galaxy’s #1 orphan manufacturer.

            The Space Pirates launch the Metroid Crisis and deploy the Tanamaar Pirates to Cylosis, reasoning that they’ve done it before so they can do it again. Samus flips things around with the Zero Mission and helps the Federation in their counterattack. The people of Cylosis fight back and a grown-up Sylux does prodigal work as leader of a squad, helping wipe out the local Metroids.

            Cue the battle: The people of Cylosis fighting in the trenches against Space Pirates who are surrounding an artillery canon. It’s not a super-weapon but it fends off spacecraft so it’s still powerful and volatile. The people of Cylosis are losing, but they have an ace up their sleeve: Sylux’s squad, which has snuck past enemy lines is right next to the cannon.

            Sylux receives a message from Admiral Dane, who notes that Cylosis is losing and they need Federation backup. Sylux tells him to fuck off, they’re not gonna give the Federation the opportunity to take control under the guise of “saving” Cylosis; Besides, pirates at Cylosis is Cylosis’ business, not the Federation’s. Dane retorts that the Space Pirates just launched a devastating attack on the Federation, their continued operation is absolutely their business! Dane notes he has Samus Aran on standby.

Mother Brain: My upbringing as an exceptional leader has resulted in an existential fear of being made redundant, and so to defend this position I will destroy any competitors and stake my claim across the entire galaxy because control over others is all I have.

Kraid: I am inherently barred from Federation society simply because of the trends of its most dominant species, and so I scour for pride in punishing the galaxy, yet yearn for a world where I would have no reason to.

Ridley: Killing iz kool 😜

I really hope this abomination of a hairpiece gets adapted for some background character in Ninjago Dragons Rising or whatever sequel series will inevitably follow lmaoooo

White male mediocrity is the overconfidence of white men yes but it’s also clearly the amount of faith people put into overconfident white men by insisting they secretly know wtf they’re doing. While hyping up a dynamic between two white boys that has been fizzling out since S3 and constantly overshadowed by the actual dynamic with the central female protagonist since the beginning lol.

“Conformitygate” was just a solid week of people saying

Imagine if there really is a secret ninth episode for Stranger Things 5 but it ends up being just as stupid as the fake finale and Byler doesn’t happen either way.

            I do think it’s super funny that Beyond takes place between Other M and Fusion. It was confirmed it takes place between Super and Fusion, and realistically Other M has to come first because not only is Samus still freshly grieving THE BABY (like, freshly enough that its and Ridley’s viscera hasn’t yet been cleaned off of her armor) but also apparently some other sources state it takes place a few weeks, months, after Super. But if Beyond’s year is referencing that one Super Metroid commercial, then it’s like a few years after Super, so it’s after Other M.

            My point is! Sylux is a character who hates the Federation and we have Federation-aligned survivors Anthony Higgs, Madeline Bergman, and that totally non-corrupt Colonel whose fates are never elaborated beyond (heh-heh) Other M. So Sylux has the chance to do something really funny to the Colonel and that smarmy nerd from Other M’s intro. C’mon man I know you can do it.

            But it’s also a bit strange isn’t it? Like with all of the expectation for Sylux to have been someone wronged by the Federation, a sympathetic antagonist who is essentially like (dare I say) Melissa Bergman. His big starring role takes place directly between Other M and Fusion, the two games that star the Federation as an antagonist. Like that era in the timeline is Samus beefing with a corrupt Old Army/War Hawks, as they’re referred to in the original Japanese.

            And after my post comparing the politics of 2D Metroid and the Prime series, it is a little absurd how incongruous Beyond winds up being with how we have the Federation being evil!!! Like there’s literally no plot if it’s not evil and we have a sympathetic antagonist wronged by it!!! And then it’s actually a Pure Good and the guy who hates the Federation is just a nasty skank bitch!!! And then we’re back to the Federation being evil!!!

            This makes me play with thoughts on my own fanon but also thoughts about the potential Prime 5 exploring this period. Like imagine if Prime 5 takes place after Fusion and before Dread and we get to see Samus on the run from the Federation (Feels unlikely with Tanabe’s glazing of it), and how her dynamic with Sylux changes for it. How would Sylux play into this, because I look at the thought that he is exactly the kind of person who would thrive amongst the Old Army.

            Realistically, this time period should have him working with the Federation’s War Hawks, rather than having to work with the Space Pirates. These kinds of people, who were already established to exist when Tanabe asked NST to save Sylux for him, would be the type to take in Sylux and encourage him, pardon him, because they like his style and how good he is at his work.

            Now it could be fun if Vorodi’s glazing of Sylux actually paid off and there was “threaded storytelling” that made Sylux a good use for future games by acknowledging this elephant in the room when it comes to his Anti-Federation grudge and motives for it. Like what if it’s revealed he’s actually been working with the Old Army this whole time, taking out Federation commanders who would oppose them, and discreetly arming them with stuff taken in Space Pirate raids. While keeping the Space Pirate bogeyman going, enough to justify another term for Vogl, increased militarization!!!

            Maybe Tanabe is secretly looking for a second Prime trilogy and we’ll have a backstory of a freshly-humiliated Sylux being taken in and manipulated by this Old Army sect who tells him it’s not his fault and offers to give him redemption. All he has to do is act as their assassin, and they’ll even arm him with some illegal assets, such as a Shock Coil that was banned for being a war crime in some prior incident.

            Or Tanabe will just ignore what this era of the timeline is supposed to be about and Sylux is just evil and the Federation is just good. Like, Yeah that shooter had nothing to do with us!!! It’s crazy how Sylux’s story being set during the period in which Samus beefs with the Federation has been my pipe dream, and yet the way it’s been handled has crushed me thus far.

            Thinking of the parallels between Sylux’s backstory and the Federation Force’s seventeenth mission, and it makes me think of the different recommended changes to Sylux’s backstory. One of them is that he followed orders from the get-go and stayed put to wait for Samus, despite having the gut instinct to take down the pirate weapon now, and then got his army wiped out because Samus was late through no actual fault of her own.

            The other one I really like, which still captures a point Tanabe was trying to convey, is that Sylux’s group actually does successfully seize the weapon, taking control from within. But then Samus passes by and because she’s been told by Miles that there aren’t any troops there (because Miles gave them the order to fall back and expected them to), she blows up the weapon and obliterates Sylux’s men right in front of him.

            So it makes sense for Sylux to hate her specifically, he’s not an incompetent idiot he actually did pull it off! But it’s still his fault ultimately. There’s a reason you follow the chain of command and by trying to be a big maverick, he got his men killed because of that miscommunication. But all Sylux can do is think of how he actually pulled it off.

            Like I think there’s a lot of potential in Sylux’s relationship with his troops. I feel it’s indicated that they overheard his conversation with Miles, they know the higher-up is ordering them to fall back but instead of thinking, Oh wow we gotta follow orders, let’s wait for Sylux to confirm that, they ask what he’s thinking. What does he think they should do. Cool suggestion! But our sergeant is the one who makes that call.

            I guess there’s this idea that to them, generals like Alex are cushy cowards who can make calls easily, but the people who are actually down on the field understand the situation better, and they’re the ones who get things done. Sylux is the one who’s getting it done with them, he gets them in a way these higher-ups don’t. They trust and respect him. So upping the backstory by indicating this would strengthen that idea. Have some of the troops react in disappointment, Is he serious? When Miles says to fall back. They came all this way here.

            When Samus is mentioned, one of them is even a bit disapproving of the use of a mercenary instead of honest Federation troops! But again it’s still Sylux’s call. I think there’s an intention for Sylux’s guilt over getting his soldiers killed to compare/contrast with Samus’ relationship with her own squad and having to leave them behind. There’s supposed to be this central theme of grief and how we handle it, and Sylux is in Denial, Anger, and Bargaining.

            But the problem is that Sylux’s relationship with his squad is so non-existent and barely exists, it’s passed over too quickly and there is an implication that these people respect their sergeant over the Federation’s general. But considering this is a $70 game that’s been in the works for eight years, I think just a few more lines of dialogue could’ve helped.

            And again, that parallel between the Federation Force we played as, we succeeded as, VS Sylux who did the same yet failed and went insane for it. Instead of making him such a moustache-twirling villain about it (because he is not utilized enough to justify that characterization) it would’ve been cool to hearken to the Federation Force by having him say, “Let’s get that weapon!!!” As his troops cheer in approval. He really thinks he’s being a big action hero, just as the player does when they disobey Miles’ orders to unlock Federation Force’s true ending and help Sylux get another space pirate weapon.

            Tbh when I think of my thoughts on human space pirates who fear being used and discarded by the Federation just as the Space Pirate races were, maybe I could work with Sylux’s canon motives and combine these concepts. He hated the Space Pirates even after the Federation let him down, he feared being replaced by people like Samus, but over time Sylux realized humanity and the pirates had a lot more in common than they realized. And it took the Battle of Zebes and the Federation military downsizing as human soldiers lost their jobs to make him realize he’d made a mistake. Add in some generational Lt. Dan pride in not wanting to lose the position his forebearers have fought and died for and this could work.

            I know I said one of the ideas for the Federation’s history was that there wasn’t really a military, just an intergalactic police, until the Space Pirates became a more active threat and Earthians were recruited to act as a standardized militia.

            But as I play with the concept of Earthian Space Pirates (which was introduced as early as the NEStroid era, before being phased out in favor of aliens you could shoot without moral qualms), I have a lot of fun with this other idea of one of the Space Pirate races… Let’s go with the Tallon IV pirates, because they’re the ones I’ve fleshed out the least… And the idea was that if the Space Pirates are ultimately races employed by the Federation who have grown resentful of their masters with little self-awareness around those they oppress, then like.

            Maybe the Tallon IV pirates were the original military for the Federation. Their race was the one employed by the Federation to police its galaxy and handle large-scale conflicts. And they fought like hell during the big wars. But then the Federation entered an era of relative peace, and Earthians entered the fray. They were punier yes, but they were a lot cheaper, requiring way less food and nutrition to keep alive.

            And if you’re in a time of peace, you don’t need to pay as much money to maintain the best military in the world; Just one effective enough to keep the peace. So the Tallon IV pirates were slowly phased out in favor of Earthians, a shinier, newer toy. The economy for this reptilian race began to plummet, and many resented both Earthians but especially the Federation. Where else were they supposed to go? You can’t toss us out like that. Some appreciated being freed from this military caste role, but others argued this freedom meant little if they had nowhere else to go. Others stressed that they were Federation oppressors so it was better not to fulfill that role, but most didn’t care about ethics and were just angry to be out of a job.

             That leaves this almost cyclical, existential threat for Earthians though; Like yes you replaced these guys, you’re the poster children of the Federation now. You defended the Federation against the Space Pirates. But maybe one of these days, you’ll also be phased out. Your story is still eerily similar to these other pirate races, just unfinished. But it seems to be approaching the exact same plot beats, where you were paid to fight and bleed and die, and then they stopped paying you as you wondered; Why follow orders from someone who can’t enforce them, when I can enforce my own rules onto these people?

            And so that plays into the concept of Earthian Space Pirates, who in their mind, they realized the pirates were right; They’re just fighting for a puny upper class who will throw them under the bus, and worst of all can’t actually do anything to stop them if they fight back, so why aren’t they fighting back? They have more in common with these militaristic races than the punier ones. Maybe the Space Pirates killed a lot of Earthians in the past before the Federation geared them up to fight back. But hey, you gotta prioritize the bigger enemy and maybe understand why the pirates did it.

            This also makes me think of how people like Samus play into this existential fear, because with the Federation expanding its force to employ more esoteric species of specialized functions, it makes some Earthian troopers feel fear, and then jealousy and hatred. They think to themselves that these special superheroes don’t know what it’s like to earn things by working with others and overcoming the odds with grit and patience. You were born special.

            Couple that with the Battle of Zebes and the Space Pirates being disbanded, and you have many Earthians who are thrilled and looking forward to peace, while others think. What now? Are the hippies in politics going to cut us out of a job by downsizing the military? I imagine Earthians have become a military for like, at least a few generations so some have this Lt. Dan pride where they don’t want to let go of that and dishonor their forebearers.

            Some of them go Old Army and a few? If they weren’t Space Pirates before, I like to consider that some of them have this existential regret following the Battle of Zebes and become Space Pirates. Like Crap we just killed off the only people who could’ve been our allies in this mess, we gotta undo this, we need to take it back. I like the thought of these Earthian Space Pirates being responsible for hijacking the Bottle Ship’s initially-benevolent cloning and repurposing it into reviving the Space Pirate leadership in my version of Other M.

            I don’t mind Evil Federation, obviously; But if Fusion is meant to be the big reveal of their dark side, having Other M happen beforehand just ruins it. So having another group play that role, who are also Earthian in homage to that, could work out. I’ve also played with bringing in Dragud and Doruba from Samus and Joey, since I like the idea of Dragud surviving and Doruba, well that’s another post.

            One of the ideas I have for my Metroid fanon is that for most of the Galactic Federation’s history, there was no formal military. There was the Federation Police, who were officers meant to enforce the law but not engage in full-on warfare. The police in each jurisdiction were locals from that area, people who understood the place and were more often than not evolved to navigate the environment.

            The idea was that if there was a war with the Federation as a whole, the Federation would commission one of the races known for being faster and stronger than others (who were armed with infrastructure that developed to play into this role) to provide its military force; Whichever race had a homeworld closest to the action would be the one paid. Otherwise, local planetary militias handled their own problems with oversight from the Federation Police.

            The first race employed for these sorts of matters were the Vhozon, whose righteous nature approved of the Federation and were voluntary in defending it, even enforcing and expanding it to a degree; But their hard moral code often made them disagree with the Federation, and as more worlds joined, other races became available who could fulfill the same role across a wider spread of the galaxy, with less reservations.

            But as discussed, even these races most often employed by the Federation to act as soldiers began getting ideas that were enabled by the rapidly-growing Space Pirate PMC, founded by the Zebesian known as Ridley and the bioweapon known as Kraid. The Federation employed the Space Pirates on a number of occasions; When its government fell due to inside rebellion against its imperialist ways, the Space Pirates took advantage of the chaos to strengthen themselves. By the time a new parliament had formed that was more wary of the Space Pirates, it was already beginning to get out of hand as Ridley and Kraid went mask-off about their intentions.

I dunno if Vorodi was hyping up one of the lamest backstories ever (Maybe the way Tanabe explained it to him sounded more convincing), if there was some changes as Beyond was developed, or maybe Vorodi had an original backstory for Sylux that he assumed would be incorporated into Beyond.

I wouldn’t be shocked if it was that last one. According to the recent Famitsu interview, Tanabe asked NST to keep Sylux a blank slate so he could go back and fill in the rest later. And NST was pleasantly surprised to find out Sylux appeared at the end of Corruption, implying a lot of the character wound up out of their hands.

So it makes me wonder if Sylux was originally going to be just one of six hunters and not particularly special, and his motive was upfront; He was a victim of Federation atrocities who wanted revenge. Hunters was meant to expand on the setting of Metroid and it began development after Fusion’s release, so it’d have made sense if Sylux’s character began as a response to the Corrupt Federation concept while we waited for a potential resolution to the storyline in Dread.

But then Tanabe saw the design and a general hatred for the Feds, and saw potential to repurpose these ideas into what was essentially his own OC. So he asked NST to keep Sylux’s motives vague and prop him up over the others using this mystery and an entire ship for a second phase. Everything was wiped out, except the Shock Coil, which was Sylux’s weapon and seen as incidental enough not to have to go back and rewrite. And as a result Sylux’s Shock Coil wound up the sole remnant of this Corrupt Federation idea, given its backstory of the Federation developing a war crime weapon.

Vorodi? He knew Tanabe asked them to rewrite the character bios for Sylux to make him a mystery, but he might’ve assumed with the intent to keep the original backstory to reveal in a future game. That proved not to be the case with Beyond, as Tanabe rewrote Sylux to his liking without anyone from NST necessarily knowing, just as they didn’t know Sylux would cameo in Corruption because I guess the rights to the character were signed over to Nintendo from the start, meaning Nintendo could do whatever they wanted with Sylux without having to tell NST first.

Given the speculation that Beyond originally involved a time travel plot and how details such as the strangely-named Chrono Tower are leftovers of that scrapped concept, it would be poetic if Sylux was a similar case and wound up in such a game.

The Politics of 2D Metroid vs Prime

            I mean if you think about it. When it comes to the 2D Metroid series, the Federation’s presence is minimal, usually meant for the sole purpose of propping up Samus’ appearance in the story. Whenever it does play a more proactive role, this goes hand-in-hand with it militarizing itself and being placed under unflinching scrutiny for this as the Federation becomes an antagonist. It feels quite meta; The Federation tries to become more involved, and so becomes more fascist.

            Likewise, NEStroid makes mentions of a Federation Police, who had to hire bounty hunters to help them with the Space Pirates; There was not an attempt at a proper standing military, just people who could fulfill one-time military contracts and then they’re done. In the Zero Mission manga, it’s mostly the Federation Police we see, with the bumbling Chief Hardy. We do see Adam in charge of a small space fleet that is necessary to counter Ridley’s, but that’s about it.

            And any worldbuilding for the Federation places emphasis on its civilian aspect, on its politics. The Space Pirates ARE a legitimate threat but there’s a fascist movement that will of course rely on the fear of the Other to build itself up. Chairman Vogl is a red flag, he wants to combine local militias into a formal military; Chairman Keaton succeeds him and this is a victory for the Federation back home, as Keaton is someone who wants to pursue negotiations with the Space Pirates instead.

            There’s this scrutiny towards the Federation to not lose itself in becoming militaristic to combat the pirates, lest they become that which they swore to destroy. There’s so much more diversity of its alien species, but also an acknowledgement of how the Federation as an institution can fail, when “P1” points out the discrimination that Mauk and Kreatz’s species face.

            Even Samus herself is not above scrutiny; The second game of the series is her committing an act of genocide against animals who were ultimately just trying to mind their own business, and it ends with Samus having a somber moment of reflection over what she’s done. Fusion doubles down on how this was at best morally gray by revealing that the Metroid genocide enabled the X parasites to propagate once more and threaten the galaxy, which the war hawks in the Federation attempt to capitalize on. Side stories to Super and Zero Mission go on to even reveal that Samus herself was the survivor of a massacre, just to retroactively make her Metroid extermination all the more questionable on her end.

            Whereas the Prime series… I mean I love this half of the franchise. But in hindsight, it really does have the most Federation presence, at its most militarized with starfighters and armor and whatnot. Instead of Police Chiefs we have Admirals, Privates, Generals, Sergeants. Echoes begins fleshing them out as purely human soldiers whose logs are like something you’d see out of Starship Troopers. Corruption makes the Federation even more militarized, which fits the grander scale of this conflict, but we also see it use Space Pirate assets such as Phazon and living brain AIs.