Metroid V Quest

[Leila Hann]

[X] Take out the eyes first again. Morph ball between their legs when they get too close.

...

(rolled 5, 73, 63, 73, includes bonus for good tactics)

Your first missile hits the front of the lead autoad, breaking off the transparent plating before its eye. Unfortunately, you're follow up with the ice beam misses at the thing leaps forward abruptly, followed immediately by its fellow. You're ready for this, and use the morph ball to escape between its legs, but the second one brings its foot down and stomps the morph ball as you pass (Energy 290/300).

Shooting away behind them, you unroll and try again.

(rolled 4, 59, 63)

This time, you manage to freeze the exposed autoad when it turns around, and land another pair of missiles into its frozen front as it tumbles forward blindly, killing it. The second one closes the distance again, however, and while you dodge its initial leap even rolling between its legs isn't enough to protect you from a wild swing from its leg (Energy 280/300).

(rolled 73, 89, 14)

You unmorph and try to fire too quickly, and your missile flies over its shoulder, too close for the guidance systems to recover the shot. This time, the autoad bowls into you with its full weight (Energy 260/300). You're forced to use missiles a bit more wildly to put this one down before it can attack again. No energy or materials recovered (Energy 260/300, Missiles 32/40).


With that unpleasant business over with, you return your attention to the decorations and ceiling tubes.

This is a recreational rolling course. Passageway width suggests that it was designed to accommodate larger chozo variants than any documented. Passageways at the far end of the hallway are currently sealed; door mechanisms lack power.

Click to shrink...

There are open sections along the tubes' sides. You could easily jump up and hoist yourself into there.

Next, the busts.

Chozo facades lack any descriptive information or captions. Radiometric analysis suggests that they were molded via rockleech and nanorobotic activity nearly 3,400 years ago.

Click to shrink...

You take a moment to process this. If your sensors can be trusted, this is an older part of the facility. Predating the landing pad by over a millennium. The Patrician said that chozo had come here for thousands of years. How old, you wonder, is the Patrician himself?

You cautiously approach the ledge at the far end of the hallway, armcannon at the ready, and peek down.

​

Down another slanted hallway, the floor opens into a pool of bubbling water. A light mist of rain constantly falls on it from above. Further below you is another door. However, peaking your helmet a bit further down, you see something of much greater concern; behind the curtain of falling droplets, a smooth, maldium green hemisphere swells out of the wall. You scan it, and aren't entirely surprised at the result.

Maldium hatch covers a bio-mechanical womb structure inside the wall, designed to grow and maintain a namihe. Motion sensors will cause the organism to awaken as soon as movement is detected within the hatch's line of vision.

Click to shrink...

Namihe. Living perimeter defense turrets. Impervious to anything short of super missiles or plasma beams, and armed with an electropulse-generating organ that puts some infantry weapons to shame. You're familiar with these.

​

If this version is anything like the ones employed on Zebes, you should be able to drop past its line of fire before it can activate and fry you. Going down the hallway toward the water might be a little problematic, however.




GO:
[] Write in (if you want to fight the autoads, suggest tactics; you've only fought them one at a time before, in a much bigger space).

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 260/300

MISSILES: 32/40​

 

[Leila Hann]

Logbook

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Spoiler: Enemies

Hostile entities known to be extant on Tamatros.

Spoiler: Geemer

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Tactical Summary: Moderately aggressive burrowing and climbing arthropod will attack if it or its egg chamber is approached too closely. Typically encountered in large numbers. Contact with a geemer's spines will deal 5 damage. Can be individually dispatched easily with any weapon.

Local "meteemer" variant is less mobile and aggressive, but possesses a stronger carapace that can only be destroyed by missiles or bombs, and often obstructs narrow tunnels.

Lore: It is not known where the geemer came from originally. Its penchant for stowing away on transport ships has seen the geemer transported to countless worlds, and its incredible adaptability has seen multiple species diverge and proliferate on many of those worlds. The geemer has been spacefaring longer than man, longer than space pirate, perhaps even longer than chozo.

To most, the geemer is a dangerous pest at best, and an ecological menace at worst. In addition to the threat they pose to unarmed or unprepared sophonts who provoke them, geemers have been known to rapidly overpopulate and consume the rest of the ecosystem if left unchecked, and their penchant for spreading disease and parasites causes lingering effects even once the infestation has been purged. However, some worlds have adapted to accomodate their geemer populations, and there is evidence that some ancient starfarers may have introduced them to xenoformed planets deliberately to serve as generalist scavengers in a planned biosphere.

Samus' Notes: I regret my part in causing the dominant Zebesian species' extinction. I've tried other species, but their hearts are too pungent no matter how much you cook or salt them.

Spoiler: Polyp

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Tactical Summary: Ambush predator uses icy environments to hide until prey comes within reach. Corrosive tentacles will deal 10 damage on contact, and more if the polyp gets a chance to latch on. Minimizing surface area by entering the morph ball will minimize the polyp's damage potential. Ice shell can be destroyed by a missile's worth of combined firepower, and the organism itself can be killed easily once unarmored. Organism's healing factor makes the loss of its tentacles a nonissue.

Lore: Brought to Tamatros in ancient times from an unknown world, the ice polyp is one of the more aggressive and powerful natural organisms in the Patrician's menagerie. In addition to the powerful digestive enzyme secreted from its tentacles, the ice polyp coats itself in a conductive gel layer that allows it to electromagnetically influence the behavior of polar molecules in its immediate surroundings, which is how it creates its protective ice shell from liquid water. This ability is similar to that of the sapient Vhozon species and many other creatures from their homeworld; it is probable that the ice polyp's homeworld hosts a similarly cryokinetic biosphere.

According to the Patrician's data package, ice polyps were used as apex predators for arctic and subarctic ecosystems within engineered biospheres. Genetically modified polyps that posed less threat to chozo were also brought to some colonies for aesthetic purposes.

Spoiler: Skinner

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Tactical Summary: extremely mobile acrobatic predator. Organ redundancies make the organism resistant to precision-based weapons, but a lack of heavy armor leaves it vulnerable to extreme temperatures and explosions. Subject can project a corrosive adhesive agent from a range of up to thirty meters to weaken and immobilize prey, and is armed with magnetized teeth and claws. Exposure to the creature's projectiles will drain 10 defensive energy and cause a temporary loss of suit mobility, while attacks from its claws will drain 20 energy.

Lore: A species of singularly vicious temperament and hardy biology, the skinner gets its name from its habit of devouring its prey in stages, beginning with the outer tissues and working its way inward. In addition to its strength, speed, and resilience, the skinner is possessed of considerable intelligence, being capable of learning, problem solving, and simple tool use.

The skinner has been introduced to several artificial biospheres to serve as a terrestrial apex predator, a "guardian" to prevent invasion of a given region by unwanted fauna, and in some cases a worthy foe for hunters or ritual combatants. The skinner has also served as a gene donor for several bioengineered organisms created on Tamatros, and even for the augmentations of some chozo derivatives. According to the Patrician's records, escape and unsanctioned reproduction have been recurring problems whenever skinners are grown or unfrozen for experiments; implanted telepathic control chips are the only reliable countermeasure.

Spoiler: Eunis

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Tactical Summary: Large aquatic organism is very strong and mobile underwater, but sluggish and clumsy on land. Aggression levels unpredictable. Magnetized shell will require missiles or more powerful beam weapons to damage, and organism's healing factor necessitates continuous fire in order to terminate it. Creature's bites and body slams will deal 10 damage.

According to the Patrician, a Eunis may be distractable with food.

Lore: A highly omnivorous creature, the eunis constantly assimilates waterborne biomass through its mouth and breathing orifices, converting them into more of its own cells at an astonishing rate via its fungal digestive organs. Eunis continue to grow over the course of their lives, potentially reaching incredible sizes.

While the eunis was brought to Tamatros for some purpose in ancient times, the Patrician's data indicates that they have not been used since their original chozo hunters departed the facility.

Spoiler: Morpha

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Tactical Summary: Organism uses its long reach to seize and constrict prey. Vulnerable to most weapons from a distance, but may require bombs to escape from once grabbed. Faster and stronger underwater than in the air.

Lore: A colonial organism similar in composition to a slime mold, but capable of much more impressive pseudo-muscular actions. The morpha's transparent body and ectothermic metabolism allow it to blend in quite effectively with its surroundings, attacking any large animal that comes within reach. After crushing its prey to death, the morpha shifts its digestive macro-vacuoles outward, digesting the remains and opening a series of capillaries throughout its mass to distribute the nutritious materials.

According to the Patrician's data, the morpha reproduces by budding micro-nektonic organisms into the surrounding water. When multiple swimmers fro different mothers encounter one another, they combine into a single colony and exchange genetic material freely between their newly adjacent cells. This composite then seeks an ideal substrate to root itself and grow into another morpha.

Spoiler: Cephok

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Tactical Summary: territorial aquatic predator will attack anything that approaches. Frontal shell is impervious to most small arms, and projects a magnetic field that reduces the effective firepower of the wave beam, but the exposed head and tentacles are vulnerable. The organism's close quarters ramming and tentacle attacks will drain 10 units of defensive energy, while a long-ranged charging attack can drain as much as 20.

Lore: Simpleminded, violent, and extremely difficult to kill, the cephok is prevented from taking over the aquatic apex predator niche in most biospheres only by its extreme territoriality and slow rate of reproduction. The organism's energy-manipulating abilities enable it to overcome the similarly exotic defenses of the benthic arthropods native to its homeworld by de-energizing their shells, and to resist the attacks of larger megafauna by reenforcing its own against similar effects.

The cephok has proven to be a useful research subject, and a highly efficient population control agent for rapidly breeding benthic fauna. It is also considered a high quality food item by at least some chozo derivatives.

Spoiler: Khrust

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Tactical Summary: Slow moving crawler will attack only if provoked or approached closely. Extremely resilient carapace will reflect anything short of a missile explosion, and while hunkered down in a protective posture the organism can resist anything besides heavy ordinance. Wave beam ineffective, but will cause organism to hunker down and become non-aggressive. The creature's claws deal 20 damage, owing to the same energy-manipulating properties that grant its wave beam resistance.

Lore: Hailing from the same highly competitive and energy-rich biosphere as the cephok, the khrust is a prolific benthic scavenger. Given an abundant food source, and absent an extremely powerful predator like the cephok, khrusts can rapidly overwhelm any grotto ecosystem, and even entire oceanic biospheres under some conditions. One of the species' few barriers is its aversion to bright light, limiting it to subterranean environments or limited nocturnal forays onto the open seabed in environments with strong diurnal cycles.

Spoiler: Kwirl

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Tactical Summary: organism's hydrokinesis grants it a strong degree of control over the aqueous environment, including the ability to deflect solid projectiles. Sustained beam fire will terminate the organism, but release its unstable energy in the process, dealing damage to anything near the blast.

Lore: Hailing from beneath the ice of a dark water world, the kwirl uses its powerful bio-luminescence for communication, navigation, and to lure prey. In order for such a large organism to survive amid the violent currents of its homeworld, the kwirl evolved hydrokinetic abilities to stabilize itself and repel enemies.

While the kwirl feeds on both actively hunted prey and microorganisms strained from the water, its body's massive energy budget cannot be met by this calloric intake alone. When imported to a new world, the kwirl must be genetically modified to adjust to its magnetic field, which it draws upon to power its high energy systems. In sufficient numbers, kwirls can have a measurable effect on planetary oceanographies due to their movement of water and displacement of sediment.

Spoiler: Hygrath

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Tactical Summary: organism's armor is impenetrable; only the exposed rear underside can be damaged by powerful explosives. Facial tentacles regenerate quickly, but can be damaged to stun the creature.

Tentacles have surprising reach, and are used to draw prey into the hygrath's claws, which deal 50 damage. Organism is surprisingly intelligent, and may use environmental hazards such as morphas or malbolgi to its advantage. When injured, it will release short-lived defensive organisms to help repel the enemy. Hygrath spawn can be killed by sustained fire from any weapon, and their own claws deal 10 damage.

Lore: an ancient creature, and the recipient of numerous artificial genetic and biomechanical augmentations, the hygrath's origins are mysterious. According to the Patrician's data, genetic samples of the hygrath were recovered from the deep oceans of an ancient world abandoned long before the chozo discovered spaceflight, and its existence hints at an earlier race having had a similar aptitude for bio-engineering, though it is unclear what purpose the hygrath was meant to serve.

The combat servitors that the hygrath generates have numerous neotenic traits, evidencing that they are a weaponized version of the original species' natural reproductive process. The hygrath is incapable, however, of producing another of its own kind; only cloning can produce a new hygrath. The Patrician has seen fit to keep only a single live specimen active in the arcology at any given time.

Spoiler: Malbolge

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Tactical Summary: Outer shell vulnerable only to super missile equivalent or stronger weapons. Weaker weapons fired inside the mouth will damage the malbolge for a short time, forcing it to close its mouth until it can regenerate. If approached while the mouth is open, the malbolge will grab its prey with its flexible tongue and pull it inside; use morph ball bombs to escape.

Lore: Wild organism genetically re-engineered for integration with rockleech network. Subterranean rockleech veins provide the malbolge with sufficient mineral-based biomass to quickly grow and regenerate injuries, while the malbolge serves as both a "heart" to push the mineral gel through the network, and a mouth to assimilate biological or mechanical debris for the network to use.

Little data has been made available on the wild ancestor of the malbolge. Lack of genetic markers in common with the morphological similar Zebesian fangflower indicates a case of convergent evolution.

Spoiler: Holtz

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Tactical Summary: Chozo biomechanoid armed with magnetized claws and a short ranged plasma flamethrower that deal 10 damage. Lesser holtz has considerable climbing and jumping abilities, and is lightly armored, requiring slightly more than a missile's worth of combined firepower to dispatch. Underbelly is more vulnerable.

Greater holtz is airborne, agile, and much better armored, requiring three missiles or the equivalent to bring down. A severely damaged greater holtz may reject its nonfunctional modules and become a lesser holtz.

Lore: Designed to serve multipurpose maintenance, security, and construction duties, holtzes have been employed on numerous chozo colonies throughout history. Semi-autonomous, they have been known to keep their facilities in nearly pristine condition for hundreds of years without oversight or management. Most are designed to receive telepathic commands from chozo or more intelligent chozo servitors, provided they know the facility's command codes.

Samus' Notes: We had a small number of them on Zebes. We didn't use them, as they were millennia-old antiques. Ridley had other ideas.

Spoiler: Autoad

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Tactical Summary: Unit possesses a high degree of mobility due to high-jump thrusters and powerful jumping legs, enabling it to close distances quickly. In close quarters, autoad will use melee attacks that deal 10 damage, but whenever possible it will leap on its target for a heavier crushing attack that inflicts 20 damage. Missiles are required to break through the armor, after which the central eye becomes vulnerable.

Advanced autoad units may be equipped with weapon or defensive modules that increase their threat level. The "Bomber Autoad," distinguishable by its orange outer armor layer, has greater endurance than the basic armature, deals 15 and 25 damage with its melee attacks, respectively, and can drop bombs in the wake of its leaps that deal 15 damage. The heavy purple "Autoad Gatecrasher" has greater durability still, a gravity suit module that enables it to move unimpeded in any environment, and a pair of ice beam cannons that deal 6 damage per shot and freeze their target in place.

Lore: An ancient design, believed to date back to the earliest attempts of the chozo to combine biological control systems with robotic hardware. These armatures are of limited intelligence and utility on their own, but can be upgraded and customized with a wide variety of modular technologies to serve numerous purposes. Some sources indicate that the modular construction of the autoad may have inspired some aspects of the original Drynn-pattern battlesuit.

Samus' Notes: The autoads I encountered on SR388 were less capable, and purely robotic. They must have stripped them down after realizing what the X parasite does with biotechnology.

Spoiler: Namihe

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Tactical Analysis: Maldium based exoskeleton requires super missiles or stronger weapons to damage, with multiple hits being required to actually destroy the organism. Rapid fire ice beam shots may freeze the namihe, but will not make it brittle. Namihe's powerful energy blasts will drain 30 units of defensive energy, and its close-quarters energized bites will drain 50.

Lore: This transdimensional organism is used to defend key locations, emerging from its extraspatial pocket to destroy any intruder that passes before its line of fire without registering on the namihe's telepathic IFF system. Storing the majority of its significant bulk in its pocket, the namihe attacks by poking its head out from the armored hatch and discharging a mass of high-energy plasma, or biting closer targets to incinerate them more quickly.

Spoiler: Gadora

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Tactical Summary: biomechanical construct with powerful radioscopic and psionic sensors can rapidly deploy over an iris door when an intruder is detected. Its outer armor is nearly indestructible, but its central eye is vulnerable to missiles and high-intensity beams when it opens to fire. The gadora's plasma blasts deal 30 damage.

Lore: older and more specialized than the namihe, this organism is designed to protect iris doors at critical locations. They are most often used to protect Counselor Brains, who typically assert direct remote control over them.

Spoiler: Torizo

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Tactical Summary: Large, highly mobile, and extremely well protected biomechanoid with a psionically imprinted semi-consciousness capable of advanced learning behavior and tactics. Unit is armed with a ramming shield projector around each limb that can deal 20 units of damage, a rapid fire power beam cannon that deals 5 units of damage per shot, and a cluster bomb launcher similar to that employed by the morph ball that deals 15 damage per detonation. The torizo can also energize smaller biomechanoids, restoring their defensive energy, via physical contact. Targeting the torizo's chest will damage its vital organs and control center, but targeting its head may damage its sensors, leaving it blind and vulnerable. In both cases, missiles or other explosive weapons will be neccessary to remove the outer armor layers.

Lore: Built in the likeness of its Lords and Ladies, the torizo is an eternal servant and guardian, capable of shifting its perishable organs into a transdimensional stasis and remaining in hibernation for tens of thousands of years with no loss of functionality. Some torizos are completely autonomous, following the directives they were given at creation and lacking the inclination or even the ability to be given new instructions. Others may be given new instructions by authorized chozo or subordinates with a series of telepathic command codes and passphrases. In many cases, the torizo itself is empowered to command lesser constructs in its vicinity, and can repair and re-energize them as needed.

While most torizos are used for high-level security and custodial tasks, they have also been deployed on field missions of exploration or bio-remission, working in tandem with chozo warriors as both frontline combatants, and mobile energy sources for the defensive batteries of Drynn-pattern power suits. Legend has it that torizos also played an important cultural and even religious function in some societies, with their psionic pseudo-intelligences being imprinted from the minds of esteemed elders who have been given this great honor.

Spoiler: Gunzu

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Tactics: Heavily armed and armored airborne servitor designed for heavy combat operations against peer enemies. In addition to its armor, shields, and mobility, the gunzu is protected by a sensor jamming field that confuses the homing systems of most missile weapons, making itself more difficult - though not impossible - to hit. The twin modular cannons on the biomechanoid's front can switch between micro and super missile launcher modules, and the ventral port can drop bombs during aerial maneuvering. A micro-missile hit will deal 20 damage, a super missile 80, and a bomb 15.

Lore: A pair of armcannons mounted on a gravity suit-equipped flying biomechanoid chasis that knows only that the enemies of its masters must be destroted. Gunzus were widely considered the second best option for intense ground combat and high risk bio-remission operations among chozo derivatives who lacked the martial inclination to fight themselves, or for more militaristic cultures to supplement their warriors and torizos.

Samus' Notes: Just as with the autoad, I fought a mass-produced version of the gunzu on SR388, whose makers were forced to rely on abiotic machines. It seems the original was a far more capable combatant.

Spoiler: Orpran

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Tactical Summary: elite combat unit is extremely fast and high powered, avoiding enemy attacks and closing into close quarters. The ramming shields surrounding its blades will deal 50 damage per impact, and its plasma beam will deal 10 per shot. When in its morph ball, the orpran can deploy bombs that deal 15 damage per detonation, and also is armed with a limited supply of power bombs that deal 100. Power bombs take a moment to deploy; attack quickly to interrupt it when the orpran shifts into morph ball. Upon death, it will self destruct in a final power bomb detonation.

Lore: of the many attempts throughout later chozo history to create an inexpensive servitor that can contend with a power suit equipped chozo warrior, the orpran is one of the more inspired. While unfurled in its bipedal base form, the orpran's speed, agility, and general mobility approach those of a gravity suit and high jump using warrior, and its preference for close quarters negates the usual range advantage. Even more dangerously, the orprans are equipped with morph, spring, and spider ball modules, and can even deploy power bombs.

The orpran's intelligence is limited, but it is more than capable of using its arsenal in effective and sometimes creative ways even without a remote controller. Legend has it that these units were actually based or modified from a naturally occurring wild creature, and some unpredictable behaviors may still remain.

Spoiler: Viola

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Tactical Summary: magnetically enveloped plasma structure moves along walls and other surfaces guided by the regional controller. A breech of the magnetic envelope will release the superheated plasma inside, requiring 100 units of defensive energy to counteract if you are within the two meter blast radius. Bombs and beams have a small chance to rupture the magnetic shell; missiles and super missiles are more reliably effective.

Lore: Incredible amounts of energy are stored within this psionically guided, semi-biological magnetic field vortice. Violas are typically kept suspended in emergency vaults ready to be released and directed as needed in the event of damage to a facility's reactor; a single viola contains enough energy to provide emergency power for quite a long time, assuming conservative expenditures. They are also kept aboard starships for similar purposes; either to provide emergency power in the event of hardware failure, or to be dropped planetside for use in setting up local facilities at short notice.

Although not originally intended as a weapon, violas are also quite effective in defensive operations. Counselor Brain units in particular have made great use of them throughout history, protecting their own support infrastructure with these improvised guided smart bombs in lieu of or in addition to other, more conventional, combat servitors.

Spoiler: Gammapede

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Tactical Summary: bioform's radiophillic lifestyle makes it highly resistant to thermal and radiant attacks, but it can be killed with concussive damage. The gammapede leaves a trail of radioactive slime wherever it goes, and can spit a volume of the same at intruders, dealing 30 damage. A bite from the organism's irradiated jaws will deal similar effects, and may also allow the creature to latch on.

Lore: Exotic bioform originates from an asteroid cluster in close orbit around an active star. Like several other radiophillic organisms, the gammapede samples were kept in close proximity to the Tamatros facility's radioactive fuel stores, and appear to have escaped and infested them in the wake of the corruption. Bioform has proliferated throughout the irradiated areas, and is known to be highly aggressive in defense of its breeding locations.

According to the Patrician's data, the gammapede is also preyed upon by a larger organism taken from the same provenance. It is likely that this larger predator is also loose in the irradiated zones.

Spoiler: Chozo Lore

Ancient recordings left by previous visitors to the facility.

Spoiler: Phendrana

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A "wild" organism is one whose behavior was devised by natural forces, while "subordinated" ones have been engineered - or reengineered - by an intelligent actor. The connotations of the words trouble me.

To whom are we subordinate? Three thousand starturns ago, I would be a brood-guardian, using secretions from glands I no longer possess to purify a nursery pool for my younger sisters and cousins. I have no wish to do this, for the reproductive instinct was removed along with the ability to act on it long before I was decanted, but if I - in a hypothetical bodiless state - were to be given the choice, which would I have taken? It is a paradox, a biological entity attempting to separate itself from its own biology, a line of thought that many would call heresy. My true question, however, is whose interests are being served by the changes we have made to ourselves? None call me underling. Many call me superior. And yet, my behavior has been re-engineered by intelligent actors in the pursuit of interests that I am unsure I share. Have my own ancestors subordinated me? Am I like one of the Patrician's outdated drones, scuttling in circles according to the dictates of a superior who no longer sees, or cares?

I would have been no more free as one of the wild creatures in pre-industrial times, skulking with the rest of my tribe in the caverns of the homeworld. But should not we so-called Lords and Ladies have left ourselves the freedom to choose between natures, if it was in our power to leave that choice open?

There was a time when watching these ice crystals form and deform in their eternal cycle would have chased these difficult questions from my mind. Watching them still calms me, but their effect is lessened with every starturn that my questions go unanswered.

Click to shrink...

The Patrician attempted to clone me with the new workarounds, one last time. Like every time before, the killswitches came on before the embryo could even develop a proper notochord. For two hundred starturns, we have traveled from colony to colony, plundered one ancient library after the next, in search of the keys to the locks our own great grandparents placed around our genetic code. We discovered some, but no one scientist created them all; no one world was ever given access to a complete changelog, and many of those worlds have been destroyed. Some by aliens. Some by natural disasters. Some by differences of opinion. These genetic safeguards were created to protect our augmentations from theft by rivals, or to prevent aliens from devising biological weapons against us, and their defense is as airtight as the exoskeletal plates that cover what may have once been my skin.

I do not know if I was the last of my subspecies to be decanted. Perhaps there have been others in the last two hundred and seventy-five starturns, or at least variants close enough to my own that I can look upon them and see a member of my own kind rather than something as alien as any nonchozo. I do not know; the starmaps we have are as hopelessly out of date as our genemaps. On some worlds, I have seen chozo adopt sophonts of other species, raising them in nurseries that almost feel like a desperate parody of my hatchling memories. The urge to reproduce might have been removed, but what of the urge to nurture? The emotional satisfaction of seeing one's line carried forth, independent of the spawning and brooding acts? If only we could unlock our genome, these questions, too, could we answer. Perhaps the same impulse that drives these strange xenophiles is also in control of my scientists and I.

Watching the ice crystals grow and melt and the snowflakes flutter through the fog no longer suits me, but out of habit I return to these caves with each visit to Tamatros. It has been one hundred and twenty starturns since my people undertook this mission, and I fear we are no closer to completing it. A few chozo subspecies are still fertile, but they expend more effort with each decanting, encounter a higher failure rate in each new brood. And most of them are trying to solve the problem by adding new patches, new workarounds, new recombinations.

Click to shrink...

It is winter at Tamatros. The tower is surrounded by falling snow. This is almost certainly the last time I will be seeing this planet.

For five hundred starturns, my ancestral neurology has known that I should be dead. The Patrician assures me that this is nonsense, any such self-recognition problems would have been taken care of millennia ago, but I no longer trust the Patrician's judgement. For centuries beyond counting, chozo have come to this world, and others like it. For centuries beyond counting, we have slowly died. Like a snowflake tumbling lively and energetic before drifting to the ground. Could there have ever been a universe where this was not so? A possible timeline in which Phendrana was a mortal woman, who died in just a few dozen starturns but experienced in that time the joy of having children of her own? Who had but a fraction of my intelligence, my physical strength, and my psionic ability, but who was never haunted by the deep-seated knowledge that she was not where and what she should have been? I still do not know if I would have chosen that life, had a bodiless version of me been offered the choice. I do know, however, that were there more choices than just the two, I would never have ended up in this tower recording these words.

There are so few chozo left in the galaxy, and fewer still who are recognizable as anything like the core phenotype. We are not completely dead. Perhaps we will never all be dead, until the universe itself reaches its final cold equilibrium. Individuals will survive for hundreds or thousands or millions of starturns, but our numbers will continue to decrease.

My team and I have chosen a new mission. Other "wild" sophonts are rising from their home planets, deciphering the secrets of star and seed and silence as we did so long ago. What has befallen the chozo must never be allowed to recur. We will return to Elysia upon sunrise, and there build a great observatory to seek out these younger civilizations and share with them the lessons we learned too late. A final, frustrated act of misplaced parental instinct? Perhaps it is so, but I no longer care where my motivations come from.

My only hope is that we living dead are heeded.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Aledai

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They say that we used to hate the sky. I don't believe it. We flew past whatever clouds or storms the homeworld had and reached the dead silence. We did it again after each new colony, when the Age of Proliferation began. Most of us still prefer caves and grottos, but that doesn't mean we don't covet the clouds. I certainly do.

Personal flight is proving harder than we thought. Space jump technology is too clumsy. Null-gravity is too energy intensive. Rocket and jet propulsion are both. We are not deterred; the research goes on. We are working toward a compromise that doesn't require vehicles or suits. No steps backward. We came to Tamatros to make ourselves less reliant on exterior things, not more.

Click to shrink...

Geemer. Preciously vulgar. One can kill and kill and kill, and there will always be more. I don't know if they were brought to so many worlds on purpose or by accident. I think it was purpose. Wherever one goes, there will be geemers to kill, geemer eggs to crush, geemer hearts and brains to ingest.

They say that the Lords and Ladies are the galaxy's truest biophiles. We are. They say that our first tool use was the flora and fauna that we subordinated. I am sure they are right. The geemer runs from me, and I feel my ancestry singing to me from inside my bones and humming along my nerves and muscles. The geemer repopulates, I kill more, and a deep contentment flows forth from within the nucleii of each of my cells. No one else loves life in all its forms like the chozo. No one else hungers for it so. We have lost something, in creating separations between ourselves and nature. Hopefully, these new augmentations will help us regain it.

Many other creatures swim and scurry and fly in this arcology. We may requisition a breeding population of some from the Patrician, before we go. Or not. There is life elsewhere. Endless variety. Fecund and vulgar and waiting for its purpose. Wherever we go, we will find it. It can never hide from us forever.

Click to shrink...

One last swim before we leave. I enjoy the water pressure down here.

The starturns of research and testing are over. The final product, deceptively simple. The Repulser organ grows in my chest. Already functional, but still getting stronger. Brief bouts of contragravity can be powered with just my surplus metabolic energy, and lift the weight from my wings. My newly designed, freshly-grown wings. Completely functional, but also a perfect symbol. They once said we fear the sky. They were wrong then. They are wronger now.

I've left this copy of the module here for anyone who finds my favorite spot. Enjoy our invention. Remember the generosity of the winged ones. Maybe we'll meet you someday.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Elzan

​

With every new discovery, my admiration for Lord Drynn swells. The complexity and reliability of the power suit, designed during a time when we had only primitive counselor-brains to assist in our research! What would the suit have looked like, I wonder, had the ancient technician an assistant the likes of this Patrician? I feel the Cipher turning on its axes, revealing itself to me as I overlay one planar schematic atop another. I dare not reengineer the core functions of the suit, but the externalities, the membranes, the module integration processors, the material re-sequencers, these can all benefit from what has been revealed to us in the centuries since Lord Drynn.

The Age of Warriors may be ending, but the galaxy remains mysterious, and hostile. Though we have yet to encounter another race of devils like the one spoken of in legend, there are many forms of life who will not co-exist with us in an acceptable form. In the past, biospheres were wasted, precious, unique species with precious, unique possibilities thrown away in orbital bombardments or microservitor plagues or telepathic infostations. These horrific acts were necessary, for there were some threats too great to be met with conventional soldiers or servitors. It is my team's intention to rectify this situation. When the chozo warrior is invincible, there will be no need for these larger, more wasteful weapons; no enemy that cannot be faced in person and returned to the Cipher by armcannon or ramming shield.

I merely hope that our actions here become no more controversial. Tamatros is a relatively new facility, and so far has been used only to create instruments of peaceful expansion and subordination. My assurances have been given that the Drynn-Elzan battlesuit, and all new modules designed for it, will be made available to all comers just as the original was. In the meantime, we continue to take inventory of all munitions data in the Patrician's archives for potential integration into our new power suit; there is much to assess!

Click to shrink...

If you have come to this room, you are no doubt planning to use the samples stored in the final cold storage chamber, or at least considering it. I know the Patrician will have already warned you, but I feel the need to do so as well.

I came to Tamatros hoping to remove the need for weapons of mass destruction. My discovery that the devils were not destroyed to the last trace as the ancient writings indicate, that as recently as a generation ago a remnant of their cancer was brought here and entrusted to the Patrician, has all but destroyed my confidence in our peoples. Were I permitted, I would have destroyed these samples and forced the Patrician at armcannon-point to delete all pertinent data. As I am not, the best I can do is beg you to reconsider.

What is the scale of the threat you wish to exterminate? Can you not destroy it with energy and explosives? Do you not have the option of abandoning its worlds and blockading its expansion? Is no coexistence possible? Is it even one iota less threatening than the thing from which these samples were derived, and which they will ceaselessly and ruthlessly attempt to reconstitute should you - or any of your descendants - overlook even the smallest detail? Is your enemy such a threat to existence itself that you would deplete the universe of its precious life energy, convert it to mere matter and thermokinesis, and subject it to the inevitability of the final equilibrium in order to destroy the threat?

Answer all of these questions. Answer them beyond any reasonable scrutiny. Only then, proceed. I hope that the beings of the universe will learn to forgive you. I hope even more that you don't exist.

Click to shrink...

We will be finishing the project elsewhere. As the Lords and Ladies proliferate and diversify in modern times, too many leaders fear that our invention will be used by some derivatives against others, and that the resources of Tamatros should not be entrusted to my group. It is unfortunate. There are very few others who have spent as much time here as myself. Very few others who know the Patrician's inventory as well. Very few...but that is irrelevant.

It is for the best. For some reason, this place is no longer as comfortable to me as it felt a few starturns ago. I am better served working elsewhere. Somewhere far away.

I have left a number of our weapon modules, which should be compatible with the new suit overhaul when we complete it. From the data sphere beyond this door, you may copy schematics for the power bomb generator. Originally designed for atmospheric bombardment, power bombs can now be deployed by ground forces with minimal risk to themselves, provided they detonate the explosion from a morph ball. You may have already obtained our infantry scale rapid-fire plasma beam; may it serve you well.

If these weapons are not enough, I will simply advise you to exercise restraint when devising anything new with the Patrician's help. I wish you, and the rest of the universe, the best.

Click to shrink...

 

[Leila Hann]

[x] Investigate the tube course.
[X] Go through the orange creepers in Foundation. Save on your way there.

...


You jump up, barely flexing your legs at all in lieu of letting the high jump thrusters do the work, and grab the ledge on the right. Its less a tube and more a set of narrow platforms, with openings along the side that are easy to climb in or out of. You can't quite stand up inside, but, its definitely more space than the morph ball's minimum requirements. There are two powered hatches, one going into the right floor, and one into the ceiling, both impassable until you find a way to power them up.

You try the much smaller course on the left. The protrusion on the wall bears another, narrower, hatch, more typically morph ball sized. Also powered down and unbreakable with your current arsenal.​

​

Anyway, if there's one thing you've learned from your career up to this point, its that the key to success is to explore absolutely everywhere EXCEPT the direction where you think your objective lays first. What a crazy world it is you live in. Instead of dropping past the namihe, you leave the new area,go back to your ship to restore, retrace your steps to the elevator and ride back down to the Patrician's icy lab complex. There are a pair of polyps that moved back into the foundations, but you dispatch them quickly with beams and bombs, losing only 10 energy in the process (rolled -7, 35). You turbo-bomb the regenerating rockleeches away and explore the tunnel to the right.

​

​

There are two more polyps in here. You take slightly more damage this time, but it matters little in the face of the missile expansion you find (rolled 3, 64).

(Missile Expansion acquired: missile supply 45/45)




GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 270/300

MISSILES: 45/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[X] Turbobomb through the orange rockleeches in the patrician's room
-[X] Ask the Patrician if it's okay to turbobomb through the rockleeches in their room, or if that might make for an unwanted insecure entrance to the room.

...


For a third time, you use the restoration booth at the top of the lab atrium, looking down the long shaft to the Patrician's patiently guarding gadora. For a second, red planktonic mists part before you as you enter the "skull."

​

"Back so soon, Lady Samus Aran. We hope the resistance you have encountered is not insurmountable."

You find yourself smiling a little. "I've surmounted much worse. I've assimilated a turbo-charger that lets me remove those regenerating rockleech segments, and I remembered a breach in this room full of them."

"In the upper access shaft, yes. Our nanoservitors have been trying to resubordinate that growth for the past 0.5 starturns with only minimal progress. We would be grateful if you removed the intrusion and allowed our backup systems to seal the breach."

"I'm not going to end up locked out, am I?"

"We will place a powered hatch there for your convenience, provided you remove any hostiles in the area beyond the breach."

Fair enough.




TALK:
[] You don't want to waste too much time, but you can ask the Patrician a few things before tackling that breach.
-[] Ask for a hint about how to reach your current objective.
-[] Ask for more information about a specific obstacle or enemy (specify).
-[] Smalltalk (refreshes every time you return to the Patrician's presence after making progress).
[] No talk, just move on.


...


ENERGY: 300/300

MISSILES: 45/45


....


Author's Note: to clarify, I will be picking the winning 2-3 conversation topics before having Samus move on. You'll have plenty of opportunities to ask him other things later, I just don't want this quest to get bogged down by massive, multi-update infodumps.​

 

[Leila Hann]

-[x] Ask for more information about the Eunis and what's needed to power the morph ball course in the Entrance Hall.


...


"Eunis. We wondered if those frozen eggs would ever be allowed to develop and hatch; none have found a use for them, since they were brought here nearly three thousand starturns ago. We know not if the infection released these organisms in a calculated move, or through a side effect of collateral damage to the facility. The individual you describe was unusually large, by the biometry tables we were given and genetic inferences we performed; a victim of its own success in this accidental ecosystem of escapees."

"How sad for it," you think back at the Patrician, perhaps more curtly than you intended, "can you recommend a way to get past it?"

"This species is not known to be particularly aggressive, unless antagonized. We would posit that crossing the surface of the lake might be safer than venturing beneath, especially were you to feed the organism before attempting the crossing. Providing the eunis with dead biomass to distract it may also aid in passing unmolested. We would also, however, caution her Ladyship from confronting a eunis of any size underwater without a gravity suit module."

You add the important details to your logbook and ask the next question.

"I found a ball course above the facade with powered hatches. How can I turn those back on?"

"One of our satellite selves governs the powered doors in the Habitat. Return it to us, and we may grant you access, as well as deactivating any barrier shields in that sector that the corruption has created."

(new data added to map; de-powered doors will now have the same marker as the barrier shields of their controlling brain unit)



...


-[x] Smalltalk (refreshes every time you return to the Patrician's presence after making progress).


...

"If we might inquire, Lady Samus Aran, you spoke of hostile spacefarers that destroyed your Zebes civilization. What is the nature of this threat, and its current status? Might we likewise be in danger?"

You give the floating Patrician an appraising look through your visor. It has no face to convey emotion, only the tone of its mental voice which could be completely affected for all you know. How much feeling are you comfortable expressing in turn? After a moment's consideration, you decide to stay businesslike and stick to the bare facts. And to omit Mother's role in what happened; you're not sure how the Patrician would take that.

"An alien coalition. One ringleader species, with at least two major subordinates. The only name we ever had for them as a whole was Space Pirates."

"A descriptive appellation, if perhaps simplistic."

"They were simplistic creatures." You pause, catching your mental voice sinking into contempt. Gritting your teeth, you correct yourself. "The ringleader species is incredibly intelligent. Their scientists and technicians performed what would have been years worth of research for human scientists in only months. But they never invented anything. All their energy went into reverse-engineering and improving technologies that they plundered from other species. Using resources that they also plundered from other species."

You remember the articles circulating in the Federation scientific community after the fall of Urtragus. The bizarre inferiority complex that seemed to be written into every building, every writing system, every governing organization of the urtragians, the race known only as "ringleader species" until then. One Federation intellectual after another had wondered, aloud and in text, about what could have brought a species of such natural determination and brilliance so low. You wondered as well, but their tone was often much more sympathetic than you - or the many other victims of Space Pirate raids - could tolerate.

​

"We observe the difference in tenses when you speak of the Space Pirates, as opposed to their constituent species. Can we take this to mean that their threat is not extant?"

"You can." Your mental voice is harder again. Carefully restrained. "I took care of what they'd done on Zebes. I helped the Federation push them back elsewhere." Another short pause, as you think about how to explain this next part. "In the end, they were the ones who destroyed themselves. In their lust for power, they discovered something that they thought they could control and weaponize. The ringleaders' homeworld was destroyed by that thing. Eaten by it. We cleaned up what was left of them. The survivors have either fled or surrendered, just like their client races."

You drift off into another silence. A deeper silence. More recent events coming to mind.

"Lady Samus Aran?"

"I thought humans were better than them. I was wrong."

...


GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 300/300

MISSILES: 45/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[x] Destroy the regenerating rockleeches and go through the hole in the Patrician's room.

...


With the Patrician's consent obtained, and a low, burning anger still churning in you at the memory of Space Pirates and other political entities who try to weaponize all-consuming horrors from beyond space that shall presently go unnamed, you turbo-blast your way through the leech cluster. True to the Patrician's word, the metal veins reconfigure behind you as you pass, and a powered shutter deploys in your wake.

​

A hot, foggy room, with water dripping from the raw stone above and trickling down through the hot mist to splatter loudly into the shallow lake. Thick, twisting arms of the Patrician's metal tubing rise here and there from the water; the scan visor tells you that they're hot, but not enough to cause suit damage. It also tells you that a greater holtz is about to come shooting down from the fog near the ceiling.

(58, 28, 53)

Frozen, it drops into the water, where you quickly land a trio of missiles before the hot water and steam can thaw it. No sooner have you done that, however, when there is a mechanical scream from deeper in the fog, and a second greater holtz flies at you.

(17, 90, 114, 23, 39)

You freeze this one as well, but its momentum carries its rigid bulk into your torso, hitting you with its cutting claws and knocking you into the water. From there, you are not able to extricate yourself before the drone has unfrozen and turned the water around you into superheated steam with two plasma fire bursts. You manage to get lucky with another ice beam shot, and a somewhat clumsy missile barrage later you've killed it and can safely pull your heavy, armored body out of the water (ENERGY 270/300, MISSILES 37/45).

You look around the room. Nothing else moves besides the water and steam.




GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 270/300

MISSILES: 37/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[x] Scan and explore everything

...


Exploration of the room reveals nothing else of interest, save thermoregulation pipes rising and coiling endlessly through the water and some wild bacterial mats that have started growing in the corners over recent months. Your scans of the back wall, however, reveal a structural weak point in the waterlogged stone.

​

The first missile cracks the rock and sends pieces tumbling into the steamy water. The second releases a much larger chunk, revealing the narrow passage beyond.

​

​

This room feels slightly familiar.



GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 270/300

MISSILES: 35/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[x] Scan the floor and ceilings.
[x] Scan the platform on the other side of the room, and the wall around it.

...


The floor and ceiling both look like they contain massive powered hatches, much to large and too strong for your weapons to damage. The wall section above the platform opposite, however, is missileable. A single micro-missile is sufficient in this case.

​

Water drips from the cave ceiling, though fortunately there's no steam here. The pools are thick and murky, stagnant and filled with opaque sediment and floating bacterial mats.



GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 270/300

MISSILES: 34/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[x] Fire missiles down at the Autoad from the edge of the ledge. If the other one wakes up, use the freeze beam on it when it reaches land, then destroy it with missiles.

...


(78, 96, 51, 5, 49)

You lock on through the murky water and start firing missiles. There's a muffled boom and ripples across the water as the scan visor reports a chunk of armor torn loose. The next one misses as the autoad flexes its powerful legs and shoots through the water to the shallows. You hit it one more time, but not hard enough to stop its leap, and too late to dodge it. You fall into the pool, and its bulk lands on top of you even as your final missile puts it down.

Fortunately, you pull yourself out onto the stony mound in time to meet the second autoad face to face as it approaches, and your reflexes prove faster. Missile, ice beam, missile, down.

(ENERGY 240/300, MISSILES 28/45)

​

Looking upward, you see a greater holtz perched on the green high security door, waiting for an enemy to approach. Unfortunately, the scaffolding below it will make it very difficult to hit from this angle. The robotic scampering sound of lesser holtzes can be heard from the platform on the upper right.


GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 240/300

MISSILES: 28/45​

 

[Leila Hann]

[X] Jump to one of the lower ledges, and pause to see if that's close enough that any of them come for you.

...


You launch yourself up onto the lowest grabbable ledge on the left. Immediately, the two lesser holtzes scuttle to the edge of their platform and launch themselves at you.

(rolled 78, 34)

One, you catch with your ice beam as it leaps across the shaft, causing its frozen bulk to smash against the stone wall and tumble into the water far below with a splash. The other manages to rake you with its claws and land on the ledge beside you before you can freeze it and use the power beam to blow it apart (ENERGY 230/300).

​

From there, you leap across the shaft to the next ledge. With no response from the greater holtz, you then make the final boosted jump onto the metal platform, both feet hitting it with a clang as you land just shy of the missile expansion.

(rolled 54, 65, 58)

It attacks, but you are ready for it, sustaining only a single hit from its blades before freezing and shattering with a pair of missiles (ENERGY 220/300, MISSILES 26/45). The missile cartridge is yours.


Missile Expansion acquired (missiles 31/50).

​

​

There is nothing else of interest in the top of the cave, save the high security maldium door and the platform for climbing in and out of it.




GO:
[] Write in

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.


...


ENERGY: 230/300

MISSILES: 31/50​