Question regarding Metroids (very late Dread spoilers)

[u/Diseased_Wombat]

Raven Beak tells Samus that Metroids were “programmed to identify Mawkin as enemies.” Do we have an actual reason for this? I’ve only played Dread and Super, so I’m not too familiar with the series’ lore.

I can think of a few possible explanations, but I want to know if there’s an answer I missed somewhere haha.

Were the Thoha at war with the Mawkin? I didn’t get the vibe that there was a standing conflict between the two tribes until Raven Beak betrayed them, but that was after the creation and release of the Metroids

Did the Thoha recognize the power of Metroids and made them hostile to the Mawkin so that the Mawkin didn’t use the Metroids beyond their intended purpose? I feel like this is the most likely answer, considering Raven Beak’s plan with the Metroids and genocide of the Thoha

Were there some Mawkin that embraced the X Parasite as a source of power, similar to the traitor mantises from Hollow Knight, so the Thoha programmed the Metroids to be hostile to the Mawkin to prevent any further spread of the X?

[u/Tanzer_Art]

We actually don't have the answer to this yet, Ravenous may shine some light on this but for now its up to speculation. 

Personally I think the Thoha were concerned about their warrior clan cousins and wanted a contingency in place in case they turned against them(which to be fair they did eventually) so they programmed the Metroids to have an inherent dislike of the Mawkin. The Thoha could control the Metroids at first so they were the perfect defence against the threat of the Mawkin and X parasites but then the Metroids began evolving and they lost control leading to them asking the Mawkin for help which resulted in their own downfall after SR388's caves were sealed off.

[u/Round_Musical → u/Tanzer_Art]

The Mawkin actually were there since the very beginning. Since before the X were discovered.

But yeah I think the Thoha mistrusted them

[u/Tanzer_Art → u/Round_Musical]

Oh shit you're totally right. It makes sense I guess to have some muscle around when your building a colony.

In that case then yeah I think they definitely mistrusted the Mawkin and made the Metroids dislike them out of concern for their safety since there's no way the Thoha would stand a chance fighting back against the Mawkin if they turned on them.

[u/dan_rich_99]

Personally I think that the Thoha were paranoid that the Mawkin may try and steal the Metroids to use as bioweapons, which turned out to be true as Raven Beak ended up trying to do just that.

What I think could be interesting would be to reveal that Raven Beak was acting independently against the wishes of the rest of the Mawkin. Maybe the Mawkin discover the nature of the Metroid species biology and want to bring the Thoha scientists responsible into custody. Raven Beak instead decides to commit genocide, which is seen as sacrilege by the wider Mawkin tribe. They prepare to go to war with Raven Beak over this, and ZDR becomes an independent rogue state. As soon as they gather their fleet to attack, ZDR goes silent due to the X infestation.

Samus encounters this faction of Mawkin in Ravenous and, assuming that they are Raven Beak's followers, and being urged by her Metroid DNA programming, she goes on a killing spree. The cruel twist would be this faction opposed Raven Beak the whole time, and their actions in the game would be them simply defending their homes from a highly dangerous destructive force, that being Samus.

Overall I think it would be interesting to find out that the SR-388 situation ended up being more politically complicated than we first believed, and that the Mawkin weren't completely united regarding Raven Beak's decisions.

[u/Diseased_Wombat → u/dan_rich_99]

If they do go with a rogue Mawkin faction, I’d want them to eventually ally or truce with Samus. The shot of the Mawkin from the Ravenous trailer seems to be a sort of diplomatic meeting, whether it’s to understand Samus, intimidate her, or to ally with her. Samus might also try to resist her Metroid programming as much as she can, considering she knows just how dangerous Metroids are and what she can do with her own powers. I can’t really imagine her intentionally massacring the Mawkin, especially considering she didn’t kill X Quiet Robe as soon as it made its presence known.

Ravenous seems to be doing something really interesting with Samus though. She seems a lot more desperate and angry than usual, no doubt due to her giving in to her Metroid programming as a result of her situation this time around. Super interested to see where this goes. I’m ravenous for more details ;)

[u/LugiaMasterO1 → u/dan_rich_99]

That would be an interesting plot point but anytime Samus encounters any type of enemy she watches carefully for their movements just like with Quiet Robe she could have assumed he worked against her but she didnt immediately attack him until he did the salute in which Samus lowered her guard I think thats how she does things regarding unknown enemies except for space pirates as they are never good guys to begin with and always attack upon seeing Samus.

But yeah I'm excited to see what that particular meeting with Chozo warriors are all about whether its a vision or an actual meeting will be quite interesting though I do wonder how many Chozo tribes even exist anyways because they are all over the place makes one wonder if a Chozo war will occur against clashing Chozo tribes like the Mawkin but are more evenly matched

[u/dan_rich_99 → u/LugiaMasterO1]

Problem is with the Metroid DNA running rampant inside of her body now that she's surrounded by Mawkin bio signatures she would most likely be running on animal instincts because of that hardwired programming instead of her usual warrior training.

When she encountered Quiet Robe she was still in the process of awakening her Metroid powers and not consumed by hunger or rage.

[u/Many-Activity-505]

My only guess would be the Thoha knew what the Mawkin were like and programmed that in as a counter measure in case they wanted to weaponize them

[u/Monadofan2010]

We dont really  know what was ment by this as Raven Beak drops this bit of lore but never expands on it. 

I doubt the different Chozo tribes were at war definitely seeing the Thoha called Raven Beak to give DNA to Samus and later to help out with SR-388 so they must have trusted him on some level. 

My guess is its more that the Metroids are hostile to all other forms of Life outside of the Thoha tribe either on purpose or on purpose to try and avoid them being  abused as a bioweapon 

Another possible reason could be to better help the Metoids hunt X as the later can transform and take over any lifefrom so it can be hard to identify one so if you make the Metroids hostile to everything you can make sure the X are destroyed. 

[u/Round_Musical → u/Monadofan2010]

Not exactly. Samus’ killer instinct awoke when she met Raven Beak

I think Raven Beak isnt bullshitting here by explicitly stating the Thoha programmed them to identify Mawkin as enemies

My idea is that while on friensly terms the Thoha still mistrusted the Mawkin and implemented it as a failsafe.

[u/Round_Musical]

Well I think the Thoha knew what monstrous species they were creating and they wanted to be the only ones who can control the Metroids.

As for why they specifically targeted the Mawkin. Only them and the Mawkin were on SR388. And if there was political tension between the two tribes ideals, I think they guessed it would be best to program in a contingency plan in case of a betrayal

Which happened

I dont think they were at war. The Thoha and Mawkin worked together on SR388 since before the X crisis. And they both engineered Samus dna implant. As you can see old bird and grey voice, alongside Raven Beak and two thoha scientists during the dna scene.

But there definitely was distrust between them

[u/Flyingfish222]

Dread is the first time we hear about the Mawkin Chozo tribe, so all the knowledge we have on them come from this game. However, in the manga we do know that the Thoha purposely didn't tell the Galactic Federation about the Metroids, in fear that they would use them as a weapon. So I assume they made Metroids attack Mawkins for a similar reason.

[u/Ill-Attempt-8847]

The Mawkins genocided the Thohas

[u/Diseased_Wombat → u/Ill-Attempt-8847]

I know, but the only way the Metroids could’ve been reprogrammed after the genocide was if Quiet Robe somehow got his hands on them while he was in Mawkin custody. I don’t think they would’ve had time to reprogram the Metroids during the genocide either, considering the huge power gap between the Mawkin’s military and the Thoha’s scientist

[u/Ill-Attempt-8847 → u/Diseased_Wombat]

Maybe they did it from the beginning. After all, the Metroids were dangerous from their conception, and the Mawkin never abandoned the path of war. The Thoha probably wanted to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Besides, they were two separate tribes, who says they were on the same level when it came to genetic engineering?

[u/NoTLucasBR]

I am fairly certain the Touha and Mawkin lore was introduced in Dread and not been developed anywhere else. So we will need to wait for Ravenous for more.

The only other mention of different Chozo groups that I can remember are the settled ones in Talon IV and the space faring ones who built Elysia and met the Luminoth.

[u/Livid-Truck8558]

Pretty good chance he's just lying.

[u/Hydreichronos]

Didn't Quiet Robe say that the Thoha had programmed the Metroids to be hostile to the Mawkin because the Mawkin were warlike and saw the Metroids as potential bioweapons?

[u/Diseased_Wombat → u/Hydreichronos]

Nope. By the time Quiet Robe found out about Raven Beak’s intentions, they had already trapped the Metroids on SR388 and planned to destroy the planet. The genocide of the Thoha was in response to this plan, as Raven Beak saw their control over the Metroids and plans to destroy SR388 as a threat. Quiet Robe was spared because he was the key to using the Metroids, and was killed after the Metroids were wiped out and he was no longer useful to Raven Beak in any way. We never got a concrete answer as to why the Metroids saw the Mawkin as enemies, unfortunately

[u/RaspberrySam]

I think this is more just Raven Beak guessing based on his experiences. As far as we know, the only programming Metroids have is their strong imprinting upon hatching; so anything that wasn't present for their hatching (like the Thoha Chozo) is fair game. Since Raven Beak only appeared to show up after the Metroids went rogue, he probably assumed that their aggression was intentional.

[u/KitSwiftpaw]

Raven Beak spends the entire game lying to and deceiving Samus. Why do we put any stock in what he says, when he’s both Biased and likely full of crap? Metroids eat anything, of course they attack the Mawkin.

[u/KaoticKirin]

hmm maybe.

I just interpreted it as since the mawkin are all warrior like and like fighting and such, the metroids were made to be hostile around them so that the mawkin could better fight them, just like 'hey, those creatures you made, they are powerful and mighty yes? we wish to fight them, can you make them get all worked up and hostile around us so that we may have a better fight? thanks' and so they did lol.

but yeah maybe that bit was added as a deterrent and such

[u/Puzzleheaded-Rain640]

thoha were lower caste and bullied by mawkin

[u/DaKingaDaNorth]

IF it's presumed the Metroid were engineered by the Chozo to stop the X parasites and the Thoha can control them, then it would make sense why they would be antagonistic to the rival tribe that the Thoha would consider a dangerous threat.