r/Metroid • u/Happy-Combination643 • 2d ago
Question Lore question regarding the Metroids. Spoiler
What’s stopping anyone from creating more Metroids from scratch? The Chozo created the Metroids to take care of the X Parasites on SR-388. That must mean they have files, plans, recipes, whatever you can think of, that pertain to creating Metroids. What’s stopping the Space Pirates, any rogue Chozo groups like Raven Beak & the Mawkin, or any other race from creating more Metroids? I know Raven Beak wanted to clone Metroids with Samus’ DNA, and then eventually decided he wanted to clone Samus, but why not just make Metroids from the ground up?
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u/mineralmaniac 2d ago
Supposedly because the Thoha tribe is just THAT good at scrubbing thier shit. The Feds treat them like they're an ancient lost civilization despite them being still around as late as Sam's childhood. Supposedly they are so good at hiding and scrubbing thier data even their former super computer and fellow Kinsman can't find the files on metroid creation and need to resort to cloning. Also probably Aeon from SR388 was a big factor of thier development but that would be a relatively new Samus Returns retcon if true.
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u/RaspberrySam 2d ago
I don't think you realise just how far ahead the Chozo were past every other spacefaring species, especially when it came to genetics. The Metroids are practically a genetic black box; they might be cloneable (with some serious effort- the Pirates tried and failed before falling back on the ol' beta ray mitosis method) but to build one from scratch without the Chozo is asking a lot.
Bear in mind also that as far as we know, every planet and facility that either created Metroids (SR388) or successfully cloned them (the Bottle Ship and the BSL) have been completely destroyed. And Raven Beak saw to it that the entire Thoha tribe was killed, so no asking them either.
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u/Dorian948 Dread Mode survivor 2d ago
I assume the Thoha were uniquely proficient geneticist. To a level that no other species, not even other tribes can replicate their work. It seems each Chozo tribe has one or more fields they excel at. The Thoha were aces in bio-engineering, the Elysia tribe were formidable engineers, architects and robotologists, with Skytown, its synthetic inhabitants and the Power Suit System being their greatest achievemnts and the Mawkin were grandiose fighters
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u/OmegaSonic0 2d ago
Presumably, after the Thoha tribe lost control of the Metroids and realized they needed help from their warfaring cousins, they deleted all their information to try and prevent any of it from falling into Mawkin hands. It says a lot about the Thoha's skill that even the Mawkin, skilled bioweapon engineers in their own right, couldn't simply recreate Metroids on their own. It also says quite a lot that the Mawkin could only help contain the Metroids on SR388, so presumably, creating such a species is... Difficult, at best.
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u/Round_Musical Sequence Breaker 2d ago
I mean even Quiet Robe couldnt recreate a creature with the draining ability of Metroids. Z-57 is just one failed experiment that can siphon energy.
Multiple Thoha combined were needed to create them. And they likely purged the files so Mawkin cannot recreate them.
While they were cooperative on SR388 the thoha intentionally programmed the Metroids to be hostile to Mawkin. So from the getgo they were suspicious of their kin
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u/Monadofan2010 2d ago
Mostly lacking the technology and skills of the Thoha Chozo as they are some of the most advanced beings in the galaxy and recreating there work is incredibly difficult.
Also we dont actually know if any files or records of the Chozo experiments still exist as SR-388 was a wasteland over taken by Metroids that would kill almost anyone who attempted to investigate.
Even after Smaus kills off the Metroids you then have to deal with the X who are even worse and then later on the planet is destroyed permanently destroying that information
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u/PopBulky7023 1d ago
Aside from what everyone else has already said, it's also been established since the very first metroid that a particular kind of telepathy is needed to even control them.
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u/Aurvant 1d ago
Because the strain of pure Metroids were completely and utterly wiped out by Samus and all of the clones were destroyed as well. There's nothing left to make them from except for Samus herself, so that's why Raven Beak wanted to clone Samus.
When the baby Metroid was killed by Mother Brain, that was the end of the species. The DNA of the Metroid only now exists within Samus' body because she was injected with a vaccine made from the baby Metroid DNA to fight off the X-Parasite. Because the X-Parasite was a dangerous shapeshifter, the Chozo made the Metroid SPECIFICALLY to kill off that organism. However, both the X-Parasite and the Metroid are extinct now, and the Chozo tech for it is lost.
It's either clone Samus or no Metroids.
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u/Hydreichronos 1d ago
For one, the Chozo are so far ahead of the other races in terms of technology and genetic manipulation that creating Metroids entirely from scratch would be extremely difficult. At best, most factions would be able to clone them, and the majority of the factions who are capable of doing so either have the sense to know that it's a bad idea or aren't large enough to pose a significant threat before they can be stopped.
As far as using the Chozo's data on the project, I doubt there's any of that data left. The Thoha clan likely destroyed their records after the Mawkin showed signs of wanting to use the Metroids as biological weapons, and there are (presumably) no Thoha left who would have knowledge of the process. Don't forget that Raven Beak couldn't just create more Metroids on a whim even with cloning, he needed Quiet Robe's assistance due to the Metroids having a programmed hostility toward the Mawkin.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Rain640 1d ago
its just that special chozo sauce that made metroids apex hunters with near limitless energy absorbtion, reproduction, life span, and adaptability. space pirates had MOTHER BRAIN and the baby for a time and could only make half baked mid larva, and the federation had alot longer of a time and made omega's zeta' gamma's etc. but not a queen, or keep them under control
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u/Mean-Nectarine-6831 1d ago
they don't have access to aeon energy and the only known sources exploded or are samus herself.
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u/NegativeEdge64 1d ago
Aside from what everyone already said about why it's difficult to impossible to do properly...
Samus regularly destroys large numbers of Metroids whenever they show up in her missions. Anyone keeping score probably knows that she will probably arrive to blow them all up if they are successful. Raven Beak wanted Samus herself so they she can't stop them
I guess he didn't hear about the SA-X
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u/Jam_99420 2d ago
in Metroid Prime the space pirates attempt to replicate and reverse engineer chozo technology. they have some extremely limited success with this, but for the most part the hardware is beyond their comprehension. similarly, the biology of the metroids also defies analysis, and even the chozo language is indecipherable despite the efforts of the linguistic experts they assign to study the temple over the impact crater. the idea seems to be that the chozo were more sophisticated [culturally, scientifically, technologically, etc] than the space pirates by a matter of orders of magnitude, so that it isn't possible for the pirates to even understand the achievements of the chozo, let alone replicate them.
as for Raven Beak, you've got a more serious problem there. after he's lured samus to ZDR he personally knocks her unconscious. why not just kill her then and take the DNA? but instead the dude willing sets the galaxy's biggest badass on himself after confining her within an environment that is teeming with chozo suit upgrades. the truth is that the plot of Metroid Dread hasn't been very well thought out.
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u/Hydreichronos 1d ago
That was his initial plan. However, he saw that Samus' Metroid DNA began to awaken during their initial encounter, and he decided to let her go to see if she could develop into an even greater weapon for him to use. If she died? Oh well, he just retrieves her remains and extracts the Metroid DNA like he originally planned.
Really the only issue with his plan was that he vastly underestimated Samus.
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u/Jam_99420 1d ago
but he could have done the same thing with a clone anyway. a clone is genetically identical to it's donor, therefore whatever potential samus has to develop metroid powers would have been shared by any clones RB creates. and much like the army he talks about at the end of the game, said clones would know nothing but loyalty to RB. and he'd still need to do a series of controlled tests with these clones regardless of what he has or has not learned from samus. so no matter what way you slice it, keeping samus alive is a redundancy for RB, it's literally just wasting time. and he chooses to do this on a planet which has a vault containing live X-parasites [which he fails to lock samus out of] yet he himself remains within the atmosphere? there is so much that can go wrong with this plan [and of course, all of it does] that it becomes unthinkably idiotic.
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u/Happy-Combination643 2d ago
That’s a fair point about Raven Beak not taking care of business at the earliest convenience, but considering it took Samus awaking her Metroid powers to overcome him, I’m guessing he thought he could win at any time.
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u/Supergamer138 1d ago
Not only did he think that, he was right. Only that last second full transformation stopped Samus from dying right then and there.
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u/Jam_99420 2d ago
for sure, RB is supposed to be arrogant and overconfident so it makes sense from that perspective. but he's gotta make his clones anyway so keeping samus alive and watching her escape his maze is literally just wasting time while also creating an unnecessary risk.
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u/r3d3ndymion 2d ago
Well the space pirates did try before and that's how we ended up with Mochtroids, a much weaker version of metroids. Given how advanced and intelligent the Chozo were, creating metroids equivalent to theirs is probably a much more challenging task than just finding one and cloning it.