#chozo ghost

[zovis]

And that's all for repostober.

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. :)

[samusu-aran]

Chozo Ghosts by Joelchan

[molagboop]

Mawkin children undergo several maturity rites before they're granted full tribal citizenship. The first occurs around eight years old, involving a basic academic evaluation and the child's choice between a physical fitness test or a dream-walk.

The evals are simple: how much has the child learned, what do they know, where can we supplement their education, etc. How can we stimulate their curiosity and foster a lifelong love of learning? Have they displayed any skills or passion for any particular subject? How can we encourage their hobbies and interests? Those are the kinds of questions the adults involved in carrying out the evaluation are asking themselves.

The evaluations help parents figure out (or reaffirm what they already know) ways to engage their childrens' interests in a fun or productive way, and how to help their child along the path to success, academic or otherwise. Every child is different: they have their own needs, and while 8 years old isn't old enough for anyone to ascertain exactly what they wanna be when they grow up, the evaluation is a good starting point for the rest of their academic track until their next formative rites.

The next part of the rites is a branching path. The fitness test is typically favored by more outdoorsy or athletic types, as well as children who are afraid of specters or arent very interested in the old ways. That's fine: old people stuff can be boring! The priests go on and on about the ancestors during holidays, but you're eight years-old and you've never seen the ancestors show up before, so big whoop. You've got toys to play and things to learn.

Another general assumption is that children who are likely to grow into steadfast warriors or athletes may pick the fitness test enthusiastically and without thinking about it, but again, this is an evaluation, and the kids are like, eight. Nothing is set in stone. Eight year olds also typically love playing outside.

A number of kids, hearing about all the cool things their elders know and are capable of, or just being curious about what their ancestors might have to teach them, opt for the dream-walk.

The dream-walk involves exposure to psychoactive fumes, but is nonetheless completely safe: the kid is monitored and made as comfortable as possible.

The dream-walk is overseen by priests and doctors. The burners are lit and the trial-goer falls asleep, entering a state similar to lucid dreaming.

Everyone's experience is different. Some kids have profound surreal experiences: others spend the entire time sitting at a table with a long-dead ancestor having a meal. Some kids are shown events from the past by an old ghost: some even experience said event from the perspective of someone who was there when it happened.

For others, the dream is of an old-fashioned hunt, typically guided by a departed grandparent or neighbor. It's not unusual for Mawkin kids to have experienced the act of hunting for food or sport by this point in their lives: many who hunt take their babies out with them on their backs. The quarry during the dream-walk, however, is typically more than your mundane game beast.

Tribal scholars and doctors of psychology have posited that the dream walk largely reflects the experiences of those involved. Formative memories and strong feelings, they believe, greatly affect the appearance of conjured apparitions in the dream. If a kid is fighting any demons at eight years old or harbor any powerful fears, they may very well be forced to face them head-on during this trial.

Therein lies the value of the dream-walk: it's not just a curiosity to get the kids to engage with cultural practices of yore, it has utility in teaching children valuable lessons through experience without actually making them fight the six-eyed serpent of a hundred and seventeen mouths. And they're usually not facing it alone: the ancestors quite literally walk with plenty of kids during these trials.

There are some truths a given child must face alone, and plenty do. But when they wake, they will find themselves among familiar company, the sweet smell of wood smoke permeating the air and a feast awaiting back home to celebrate their first milestone towards becoming an adult.

Some kids don't fight any major bosses or experience the heat death of the universe through the eyes of a slug, instead deriving value from the dream-walk in the form of sensory-guided introspection. The lesson they learn may not even be apparent to them until six years down the line. It doesn't have to be deep: it can just be an experience that gives then a new perspective on the world.

The senses are heightened supremely during the dream-walk, allowing the dreamer to experience the world in a whole new way. Tasting color, feeling the vibration of every sound beneath one's skin, perceiving the shape of every smell. Even if the kid walks away thinking "huh, I've never experienced the world that way before", the trial will have been a success. In the very least, a child should come out of that dark room with a unique memory for them to examine later on.

Several minor rituals and evaluations occur around twelve and fifteen years, but the foremost citizenship rites occur around seventeen, when an individual's stomach is strong enough to handle sap wine in greater quantities without suffering catastrophic liver failure. The dream-walk is a requirement this time around, as well as a combat test. The combat test is the actual rite that determines one's status as an adult: the mandatory dream-walk occurs beforehand as a way to shed all doubts about the strength of one's resolve if they have any insecurities, and perhaps gain some personal insight in the process. Introspection assisted by psychoactive substances.

You may be wondering how those with varying degrees of disability come of age if they can't engage in the rite of combat. There are alternatives to the combat test if the participant doesn't feel able enough to fight, or otherwise can't exert themselves without experiencing undue pain and discomfort.

There are alternative rites for individuals of every combination of physical and cognitive impairment, and all are treated with the same gravity and dignity afforded to the typical rites. Poetry recitals, music, research projects, an oath of maturity: these are a few examples of things disabled Mawkin have done to establish their claim to adulthood in place of the rite of combat. An individual doesn't have to be "good" at something: they just have to show that they accept the responsibility that comes with being an adult, or are otherwise committed to their community and the tribe at large.

For some people, that commitment comes in the form of thriving to the best of their ability. Surviving to the next day, striving for tomorrow to hurt a little less than yesterday. It doesn't matter whether they can "contribute" or be a "productive member of society": all are one, and one serves all. The Mawkin take community very seriously. There's an age-old adage that says something to the effect of "if one is suffering, all are injured", and "when one is deprived of dignity, we are all cast naked face-down into the mud".

Anyways, that's how juvenile Mawkin are granted all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that come saddled with being an adult. It's worth noting that most of these rites line up with a typical Chozo's molting cycle, with the final rites occurring just as young warriors are shaking off the last loose feathers of their old coat and displaying their first (clear) adult patterns.

[maburito]

HELL YEAH I DID IT!!!!

TAKE THAT RIDLEY!

[coldgoldlazarus]

Am I reading into this too much, or does anyone else hear a similarity?

[but-a-humble-goon]

Uniformly everybody's biggest takeaway from re-experiencing Metroid Prime with the Remastered version has been the Chozo Ghosts are the worst thing to happen to gaming since lootboxes. We could achieve world peace if humanity could only apply this level of unity to something actually useful.

[razzek]

Me: Aww man, I don't wanna go all the way through the frigate crash site just to get to shitty Phazon Mines East. I know! I'll go through the Chozo Ruins! That won't take long!

(literally an hour later, exit above the frigate)

Me: Ffffffff.... It's time to stop playing for the day. >8C

[nobody-1881]

Metroid from Ridley’s Perspective

Samus from Ridley’s point of view, is the culmination of Ridley’s sins. Samus is the victim of Ridley’s atrocities, yet is the thing that constantly sends Ridley’s machinations to the trash heap. Ridley kills the Chozo and destroys K-2L, Samus destroys the Space Pirates. Whatever plan Ridley comes up with, Samus is always lurking, waiting, and hunting. And Samus does not stop. Samus isn’t haunted by Ridley, she haunts Ridley. I’m fact, Samus does this to every villain, Mother Brain’s betrayal of the Chozo leads to Samus hunting her down, and because she stole the baby, Samus is able to find her once more. Raven Beak ultimately is brought down by the same threat he released, (Parasite X) and is destroyed because he made Samus more and more Metroid-like. Even Phazon is taken down by Samus, who by the end of Prime 3 is almost like an avenging ghost, gaining power from the other bounty hunters. Samus from the villain’s perspective, is all of their collective bad karma appearing in the form of an Orange demon that will not stop at anything.

[myfaveisfuckable]

Su Xiyan:

A woman in a sugar daddy-sugar baby relationship where shes the sugar daddy. to the demon emperor. Ambitious and ruthless but has a soft spot for her useless bf. still the demon emperor. Anyw yeah she could beat me up and my ghost would thank her

...also her son has (canonically) the biggest dick in the world and we all know which of his parents he inherited that from.

* it's spiritual

Samus:

chozo dick mayhaps?

* it's real and huge* it's not not canon* it would be canon if it were up to me

[kronim195]

I find it kind of fun that even though it’s not very explicit, magic seems to canonically exist in the Metroid universe. A sci-fi universe that also has supernatural forces beyond scientific understanding. The Chozo of Tallon IV gained the ability to see visions into the future, ghosts are a thing, lore on Bryyo talks about mages and wizards, Metroids feed on something only referred to as ‘life force’ but scientists can’t figure out what it is exactly. When a Metroid feeds on you it doesn’t remove any fluids or cause any trauma, but it removes something from you that’s implied to be spiritual, which kills you and turns you into dust.

[thejokig23]

Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes are both incredibly immersive experiences that share one flaw throughout

Doors

There are SO MANY doors and you need to open all of them by shooting them. My three questions are:

- Why are there doors in otherwise natural environments?

- Shooting them. Restating it. Why? Could they not have automatic doors?

- How would the main inhabitants of these planets fit through them? Luminoth are like 12 feet tall. Do you mean to tell me Mothman is crawling around on all fours while doing his daily business? For the Chozo I understand it a tad bit more as their ghosts are about as tall as Samus, and it was only in Dread that we really saw how big those birds are

Edit: I am aware of the technical need at the time to section off each area, and the doors allowed them to do this. You are missing the point. Please stop telling me.

[funky-vg-beats]

chozo ghosts metroid prime ost

[molagboop]

Life on ZDR, Volume IV: Death and Spirituality

Welcome back to another episode of "What's In My Head(canon)?". Today, I'm talking about dead people and the Chozo who take care of them.

Inheritance isn't the only significance the Ancestors possess, oh no. They play a greater role in the tribe's spiritual beliefs.

Dead people. Who takes care of them?

Corpses. They need to be disposed of! If you're a Mawkin and you've got a body you need handled, chances are, you'll call for the Order of the Cairn.

A coroner from the Order of the Cairn carrying a tell-tale gourd lamp.

These shrouded carrion-seekers are an offshoot of the priesthood dedicated to caring for the deceased. Some parents tell their children that the souls of bad Chozo fuel the light of their lanterns, but it's really just butterfly oil.

Quiet types are usually drawn to the job. They dress dramatically, but they're mostly harmless. Mostly. They wield cudgels, which they occasionally use to swat away hungry scavengers while collecting corpses in remote locations.

Defiling corpses and graves is strictly taboo. In this vein, consuming the flesh of the honored dead without their express consent is an unspeakable crime: only two individuals have ever been punished for it in the tribe's history. One of the offenders was the lich-lord* Shasskal, who believed that he could take on the power of deceased Warlords through ritual consumption of their flesh. Records of this period are poorly managed, but a surviving manuscript holds that Shasskal "compounded these foul blasphemies and bid [the Honored Dead] to his command". His manuscripts were gathered and sealed away with his remains.

Traditional "necromancers" already don't play the rules, but Warrior-Magicians? That's just downright unfair. Necromancers should be scrawny and clever, not skull-crushingly jacked!

*This moniker is derived from a portmanteau of the phrases "zissva malaga kaskri haibar" and "Ninu man cumane oskoro ve elar": roughly "Accursed devourer [of] consecrated flesh" and "[he] who commands [that which] sees no rest" respectively. It's an easy English alternative, in the very least.

And who should keep these records but the Eyes of the Shroud, who are dutifully charged with watching over the Accursed: Mawkin who died in disgrace. If a Mawkin dishonors their tribe, standard procedure is to execute them, cremate the body, then use three quarters of the ashes to fire a ceramic vessel to hold the last of the corpse dust (however, there have been cases where individuals were scorned in this way posthumously). This practice is very much a holdover from the old days, but it is taken very seriously.

Who you are and what you accomplished in life not only affects how you're remembered, but how your remains are interred.

The Ancestors and the Priesthood

Priests are very decorated individuals. The Mawkin value their ancestors, so the individuals who tend to their needs must be honored accordingly.

The Mawkin believe their ancestors persist after death. Not necessarily in an "oo spooky ghost" kind of way, but they're still around. Not that they can't stick around in a spooky ghost kind of way, because they absolutely can; Samus learned this the hard way on Tallon IV. Sometimes, they guide their descendants in minor ways: maybe a leaf in the wind that a grandson may notice, one he happens to be moving the same direction as and leads him towards a benign experience that sets off a chain of events and changes the course of his life for the better. Other times, they send portents of events yet to come and subtly suggest how to circumvent them, no big deal. Sometimes, the message is as simple as "hey, you left the lights on"... though they usually don't pipe up for things that trivial.

The latter of these two brands of message is usually delivered to the priesthood, who spend much of their time inhaling substances that are believed to make them more susceptible to the whims of the departed. They train their entire lives to interpret messages sent by the dead, most of which they "hear" in passing, rather than simply being approached by a dead person for the sole purpose of sending a message (though it can happen). The Ancestors almost never speak directly to people; they suggest what they want through gesture and signs sent in dreams.

No one can agree whether the priests are actually "walking the spiritual plane" or not, but Bird Magic exists (which the Mawkin actively weaponize; their greatest leaders wield huge arm-mounted Bird Magic-powered guns for crying out loud), so the Mawkin don't really question it. It's been done forever, and much of what the priests say is helpful... or at least they haven't yet been egregiously wrong. There have been theses written on what might be happening during this "communion", stacks and stacks of papers documenting the effects of holy compounds on the brain during inhalation, and miles of theories posited by thousands of scholars throughout the course of history. But all conclusions are riddled with conjecture.

Most of what these priests are smoking is burned as incense, usually in a little decorative bowl or lidded pot. The older priests have diffusers which they rig to absolutely saturate the air during rituals. If you're eight years-old, and you're going through the spiritual portion of your first maturity rites, you're bound to sit in a room with an old guy wearing more layers than you've ever seen on a person in your life, breathing in the densest, most cloying air ever to pass through your lungs. Like, "how much of this is even oxygen at this point" thick.

The Mawkin have identified numerous chemical compounds that their priests find useful, and know of ways to synthesize them in a pinch. There are three compounds associated with communication beyond the physical realm:

Mathor Root

This hardy little root opens a priest's mind to the will of the Ancestors. Most days, a priest might burn some mathor and go about their day, perhaps go for a stroll and see whatever signs are sent their way. Vapors from burning mathor are pretty spicy, and the dry, smoky consistency can be difficult for the unacquainted to get past. The root contains hallucinogenic compounds that make colors seem brighter, heighten one's attentiveness to subtle noises, and bolster wakefulness, among other side effects.

A priest who is administering a youth's maturity rites will inhale a bunch of this stuff before the rite actually happens because the substance burned while the kid is in the room induces a state similar to REM sleep, and the waking compounds in mathor dampen the soporific qualities of the dreaming vapor. The priest wants to experience the plane-shattering effects of both substances so they can monitor the fledgling's journey without inserting themself into the narrative.

If the priest needs to intervene, they can, but they're not disrupting the kid by remaining awake. The priest gets to walk around the room feeling subtle vibrations in the air, tasting the colors, and narrating the scene to no one in particular.

That last part is especially useful because the spirits don't usually talk, and when they do, it's especially inaudible to those who aren't "attuned to the spirits", (read: they don't smoke enough of this stuff to know how to perceive the words), so if someone on the other side of the veil has a particularly pertinent message for the kid, the priest's voice in the waking world can help deliver these words to their not-quite-asleep little ears.

Ralis Oil

Speaking of which: ralis oil. The whole fungus can be used here, but the cap of this mushroom contains the highest concentration of the good stuff, especially in younger stalks. When you burn ralis, you'll begin to feel drowsy and descend into a state comparable to lucid dreaming. The hallucinogens will make everything wonkier than your standard dream, and you may encounter the silent spirits of long-dead relatives, but otherwise, it's just as surreal as an ordinary dream.

During a ralis trip, one can be rather easily awakened, as they're not experiencing deep sleep. It is of utmost importance that one under the influence of ralis vapor is not awakened in the middle of their dream unless by a trained priest. Either they ride it out for the duration of their unconsciousness, or you get someone who knows what they're doing to slowly ease them into the waking world. People have died from interruptions; it's not a pretty death.

Ralis is most often diffused during rituals such as the aforementioned rites of maturity, but priests will inhale the fumes if they feel there's something that's trying to be conveyed to them, but can't be effectively communicated through other means. The worst offenders in this regard are the spirits of Warlords long past.

That's right: ralis is most often used to listen to complaints from the Mawkin's dead leaders. But the Greatest of the Mawkin's Ancestors won't just speak to anybody. Sure, they appear in Joe Schmoe's non-drug-induced dreams every now and then, but when they really need to talk, they want to see the high priests or their apprentices: the old hens and rooks who are going blind, losing sensation in their limbs, and are having difficulties ambulating unassisted (All problems that seem to disappear when they fill the room with smoke. These compounds are stiff).

These dream-meetings are immensely sacred events and occur in utter isolation. Not a peep from the outside world is to reach the dreamer's ears, not a single light is to be left on, save for whatever flame is still burning near the source of the fumes or however many candles are required by the circumstance.

Usually, if the Warlord is to hear a message from his predecessors, it's delivered by whichever priest facilitated communication between the Old Ones and the tribe. They'll arrange to see Raven Beak and arrive in full regalia to tell him every last detail of their communication with the old Warlords: what did they see, what did they hear, who was there, were any words spoken, what could they deduce from the encounter, any symbolism, etc.

But if it's not a priest they want, it's the High Lord himself. When the Lord Commander is called to commune with the Ancestors, they are locked in a vault with its own isolated ventilation system behind an 8-inch thick metal door. The accommodations are luxurious, and nobody is allowed in or out until the sacred words have been received. Raven Beak could count the amount of times he's had to lock himself in a dark room with nothing but his thoughts, his smallclothes, and a diffuser for company on four hands. Most of the time, the Ancestors delivered important information. Other times, they're... less than helpful. But that's a tale for another time.

[maburito]

Nevermind, the chozo ghosts gets easier to fight I feel

[princess-of-the-corner]

SpeedyNess streams: Metroid Prime with Roxanne

Battling Chozo ghosts

Roxanne: stupid ghosts keep disappearing! Quit hiding!

SpeedyNess: you have something to prevent that from being an issue, remember?

Roxanne: *eyes glow as she activates her eyes special function*

SpeedyNess: um... rox?

Roxanne: *freezes. Eye glow immediately cuts out. Pauses game*

SpeedyNess: *trying not to laugh* I meant the X-ray visor-

Roxanne: *cradles head in hands* I really just did that... *sinks out of view of streamer camera*

SpeedyNess: okay, I can talk about this so-

Roxanne: *low whine*

SpeedyNess: -one of the neat little things Roxy has, is that she can see through some walls. It's meant for use on the raceway to see through things that obscure the track to prevent collisions, or to help diagnose problems with carts...

Roxy: *dramatic husky whine*

SpeedyNess: so instead of using the games X-ray...

Chat: *has practically been reduced to exclamations of 'wat.', laughter, exasperation of 'Fazbear tech bullshit', and the like*

I mean her eyes also let her see Ghosts so absolutely!

[shuunnico]

How do you argue against someone who says a certain piece of media was experienced by them at the right moment in their lives or that it's really important to them and thus, criticisms are irrelevant?

I'd just say nobody is attempting to diminish the impact that story had on them. Something can be extremely important to someone while being flawed.

Metroid Prime was the first game I bought for myself, along with the first console I bought for myself. And it was an uphill battle because my family didn't think video games were something a girl should be into. It cemented my love for gaming and my big first step toward independence. It's an extremely important game.

I can still criticize that game and still have it hold a place in my heart. The Chozo Ghosts are extremely annoying, especially with how the game handles respawns. The final boss is not very difficult (I'd argue that most of the bosses are not very complex).

The healthy and mature outlook is that just because something is important to you, doesn't mean it is beyond criticism. If something loses value to you because it's not perfect, then you were in love with a fiction, not reality.

It's okay to value imperfect things.