#metroid lore

Reposting this from my old account, with updates to reflect Metroid Prime 4: Beyond news.

Elysia is one of the multiple planets visited in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It is a gas giant in whose atmosphere floats the mechanical city of SkyTown, which was created by the Chozo about 1500 years before the events of the Metroid series. 50 years later, the Chozo also created the first of the Elysians: sapient robots made to help with the upkeep of SkyTown. 400 years after that, these Chozo left Elysia to live on Tallon IV (the setting of the first Metroid Prime game). Elysia was left in the care of the Elysians.

During Metroid Prime 3, Samus visists Elysia and encounters many robots there as enemies, because they have been corrupted by Phazon. It is never specified which robots are Elysians however, and which are some of the robots created by the Elysians to maintain SkyTown as they entered a deep slumber.

"By the year 600, we of Elysia were low on critical supplies and fuel. We created smaller mechanoids to process fuel from the atmosphere of Elysia, but they proved unable to produce a sufficient supply. Unable to secure the necessary resources to sustain ourselves, we entered a state of hibernation to preserve our remaining stores of energy and parts." -SkyTown Data entry: "Slumber"

This is the case in the English version at least. In the Japanese version, the scans of the robot enemies fought on Elysia does specify what counts as an Elysian and what doesn't. In the English versions, all inhabitants of Elysia are called "Mechanoid" at the start of each scan. For example, with the Tinbot enemy:

"Tinbot Mechanoid: Tinbot" -Tinbot scan

However, the Japanese version has this equivalent:

"ティンボット エリシアン：ティンボット" "Tinbot Elysian: Tinbot" -Japanese Tinbot scan

Elysians and Drones

The enemies described as "エリシアン" (Elysian) in the scans of Metroid Prime 3 are Tinbots, Steambots, Steamlords and Helios (the boss fought inside Elysia's Leviathan), which are pictured below.

Most of the other robots found in SkyTown are Drones (ドローン) created by the Elysians. These include the Repair Drones and Aerial Repair Drones created for maintenance work, Transportation Drones to carry resources, Databots to store the history of Elysia, Elysian Shriekbats, Swarmbots, Steamspiders built to carry out tasks in groups in hard to reach places, and finally "Dragoon" Battle Drones built to defend the city.

In the Metroid Suit, Samus is unable to use her Aeon abilities

However, in the wiki for Aeon itself, it also states,

Aeion may thus be the factor that triggered the [Metroid] species to metamorphose into uncontrollable forms, leading to the collapse of the Chozo civilization on SR388.

The discovery of metroids was a cool sci-fi pulp-adventure discovery in the original manuals. Mother Brain would have already set her sights on SR388 if she knew 

I’d prefer it if the scattered Chozo due to their depression seclusion don’t all know eachother.

Now does this mean when those who fled Zebes settled Talon IV they might have sent out a signal calling other chozo and one might have brought a strange jellyfish-like pet that would later fly into a crater and become Metroid Prime ?

Maybe

I’ve seen others propose Dark Samus killed them as competitors, but I’m unsure.

Its pretty clear from later entries that the meteor in Metroid Prime (the game) was probably unhealthy/diseased. I suspect orange phazon is not produced by healthy Leviathan seeds and why it, and thus orange phazite are so rare.

I’ve also suspected that the reason Metroid Prime could create phazon (which it then allowed to self-replicate/corrupt normal matter and farmed like leafcutting ants do with fungus) is that the diseased core, or pieces of it fused with the metroid it had made into a guardian. Just as pieces of  the pulped metroid prime later fused with the Phazon Suit. 

Thus the remains could be Dark Samus’s  failed attempts to create kin for herself, end up failing because the original metroid prime was unique and unreproducable. Metroids become social organisms in some ecosystems, and phazon mutation seems to increase their sociability. Behind the visor of Dark Samus could be a well of loneliness. 

Not Ridley, that was awesome.

I mean the metroids metamorphosis being unplanned, and the sketchy-seeming Chozo that made them losing control.

I figured the reason metroids were made to be adaptable was in case the X-parasites or something like them ever appeared on another planet. This makes it come off as unplanned.

I also figured some of the other forms of metroids, which are more solid and less useful for warfare, were intended to replace the ecosystem roles of some organisms driven extinct by the X-parasite