#federation prime

[cirilee]

bIG bord tries to not immediately EAT book to obtain the knowledge inside

[toon-topaz]

birbs for @cirilee‘s Federation Prime universe uwu Draco is ruler of the planet Syrak and based on a bird of paradise/peacock, and Cygnus is his most trusted advisor, based on a swan/duck

[oldschoolfrp]

Battle at the Ziggurat -- David Menehan's cover for Prime Directive: The Star Fleet Universe Role-Playing Game, by Task Force Games, designed by Timothy D Olsen and Mark Costello (1993).

Prime Directive obviously is a Star Trek RPG, but one that does not mention "Star Trek" by name. It was published under the same license as Star Fleet Battles, granted to Stephen V Cole's Amarillo Design Bureau in the late 1970s by Franz Joseph, creator of the 1975 Star Fleet Technical Manual.

Like Star Fleet Battles, Prime Directive is focused on military actions. Player characters are members of a Federation Prime Team, an elite special forces unit assigned to the most dangerous missions.

Prime Directive describes a United Federation of Planets, phasers, and Vulcans, but you won't find Kirk or the Enterprise in this book, even in its detailed Star Fleet Universe Timeline. For that you need Star Trek: The Role Playing Game by FASA (1982-89), based directly on the original series, animated series, and first movie.

From Prime Directive:

[funkylittlecrowboy]

THERE HE IS

THE FUCKER

[bunkerhillbros]

"Prime Hunters" from Tomycase.

[potato-jem]

matthew, just one scene where alex and henry talk shit PLEASE

[takapuolikuu]

[sepublic]

You know what would be really funny? If we saw one of the Federation Force mechs in Beyond. Apparently they’re around the size of an Omega Pirate, although I can’t find a source on this, plus the way they scale with Federation troopers in the game makes me skeptical. But it’d be fun to see them in a proper non-chibi art style. The fact that you’re piloting a mech is hard to really notice or appreciate because the Space Pirates you fight are also conveniently sized up due to ancient Bion technology, so there isn’t a proper reference to feel that size; The mechs themselves look too similar to Federation troopers too, so one would assume they’re just regular soldiers.

Maybe a Federation Force mech could be a boss fight, or an ally, or something you can find and scan. Getting to appreciate them from the perspective of a regular-sized Samus would be neat. It’d be a bit meta if you find the wreckage of one, given the fandom’s feelings about that game… And the scan could reference the Bermuda incident for Samus, too.

[lividria]

okay but given the side we see of the galactic federation in fusion & other M (& how in dread it's specifically called out that samus is not being adequately paid for dealing with the fucking X but that's much lesser) what if sylux is right, what if he was able to steal his gear from the federation because he was a personal victim of their bullshit, what then

[mhexart]

This looks like the Other M Galactic Federation armor

[mailmiocuoredipietratremaancora]

The documentary is gonna kill me, love you so much Roger

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[nerdy-the-artist]

Space Pirate Design Ranking

The Metroid series has a boatload of different designs, completely changing between every game except the 2D iterations. Some think it’s simple design inconsistency, others think that they’re different genetic manipulations of the same species, while others (including myself) are of the opinion that the Space Pirates are a collective made up of various species. Today, I’ll be ranking these designs based on what they convey and, simply, what I think is cool and aesthetically pleasing. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll only be ranking the standard Space Pirate variant of each game, the “core enemy type” if you will. And yes, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is here, though its place in the ranking is subject to change as we get more closer looks.

7. Metroid Prime 2 Echoes

Some people may consider this a sin to put so low on the list but, to me, this really just doesn’t fit the whole vibe of the Space Pirates, especially in the Prime series. In the Metroid Prime saga, the Space Pirates are an authoritarian empire who recklessly abuse technological advancement for the sake of domination. This just… doesn’t say that. It’s a good design, don’t get me wrong, but this really looks like some weird skeleton knight. I could see this crawling out of some crypt to seek vengeance, not descending from a space ship to plunder. For that reason, I gotta put this guy in last place.

6th place: Metroid Prime Federation Force

For many of the problems Metroid Prime 2’s design has, I think Federation Force remedies… and then makes the opposite mistakes. Federation Force’s Space Pirate design is, canonically, around the same height as Metroid Prime’s Omega Pirate. Why make mechs for your game if you’re just gonna scale the enemies up anyway is anyone’s guess. With that in mind, I kinda like this as a heavy unit for the Space Pirates, but the center of this design just is a bit hard to look at. I love the limbs and the inclusion of the iconic Prime Pirate energy blade. There’s a mix of fleshy joints and tough, metal plating that I enjoy, I actually like the bright red eyes as well, especially for a heavy unit. But the carapace around it just feels… it’s kinda hard to look at. That mouth, as well, is just a bit too buggy and lacks expressiveness. Really, that’s my edict on this thing. Good extremities, but lacks expression and is generally tough to look at. Still, I imagine someone could retool/retexture this thing to be a real banger of a design.

5th place: Metroid Other M

From here on, these designs are ones I truly like as Space Pirates. Metroid Other M’s Space Pirate design was a tough one to find a good image of. This was about the best one I could find in a cursory search. As far as official designs go, I think this is the best translation of the iconic Zebesian Space Pirate to 3D we’ve ever gotten. There was a small effort made in Prime 2 to bring the claws back, but here there are on full display and they look great. The whole design is, honestly, fantastic. You can see the smooth bands around the limbs and torso, downward pointed jaw, and the big, smooth, blank eyes of the old sprite. The spines on the back and head really add some personal flare to these guys as well, and the whole design has a delightfully cheesy color scheme that I simply adore. I think the series has designs that evoke certain feelings and themes better, but this is certainly a fun looking guy.

4th place: Metroid Prime 3 Corruption

Unlike every other type but the Zebesians, the Space Pirates of Corruption have a distinct name based on the Homeworld we explore, Urtraghians. There is a distinctly pseudo organic bend to these guys, with the textures on the armor plating feeling almost Xenomorphic. However, where I think this design stands out is, of course, the head. The long, pointed teeth clearly visible under the rows of eyes really makes this eel-like head intimidating. You can really imagine the Urtraghians descending from their ships in a city, gunning down innocents and plundering whatever they choose. These animalistic terrors will smell where you’re hiding and drag you out kicking and screaming. It really fits the Space Pirates’ role in the story. From day one, they really have just been a bogeyman for the Federation. We rarely actually see them doing… ya know… pirating. The rampant technological obsession was a concept introduced by the Prime trilogy. As a design for the Bogeyman of the Galaxy, I think the Urtraghians work great.

3. Metroid Prime 4 Beyond

Haha, 3 is for 4 and 4 is for 3. This will be subject to change and many people might not rank them until we get clearer images, but uh… I’m doin it. Beyond’s pirates have a very buggy design, but in a way that’s parallel, not identical, to the Zebesian designs from the 2d games. Their mouth is split into mandibles, they have a hard carapace, and their movements can be jittery and unsettling. The large size of them compared to the Federation personnel seen in the trailer really evokes power and control. Their armor has outward pointed edges and defined pectorals. These are conquerors, proud, undefeatable warriors. The sparseness of it also evokes a sense of confidence, as if they don’t need a full covering when their hardened shell is so superior to weak flesh. It’s almost ornamental in a way. (Though someone should remind them they lost in every previous fight against Samus). Their mandibular maws, hunched backs, double thumbed hands, and digitigrade stance (standing on their toes with their heels off the ground) also evokes a certain other core enemy type in a sci fi shooter.

I’m going to leave it here for now as I have some other stuff to get to at the moment and I Forgor the image limit on Tumblr posts. I’ll get the ranking for the final (first?) two designs by the end of today. Then, I might make a post about what roles I’d fit these different species into for my own storytelling purposes.

[toon-topaz]

The Nova Trinity Orion ( @cirilee) Aquila ( @felonius-glitch) and Draco (mine) Available as a poster here :)

[coldgoldlazarus]

Yanno, Metroid Prime: Federation Force raises an interesting question: How did the Pirates successfully capture Samus for brainwashing in the first place? One of the less dumb points of criticism against the game is, as cool an idea as having her as the final boss sounds on paper, the setup required just doesnt't seem plausible.

The more realistic theory is she was still working through the aftereffects of the Phazon infection and subsequent withdrawl, giving them a chance to ambush and knock her out successfully, while only losing a few dozen soldiers in the process instead of like, a hundred or more.

The sillier answer, that I personally subscribe to, is the Phazon withdrawl thing, but also that in her moment of weakness and loosened judgement, they figured out how to deliberately weaponize her item-collection OCD to lure her into an inescapable trap.

[tallon-underworld]

The Galactic Federation Compound.

(Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Gamecube, 2004)

[sablegear0]

Kinda fucked up stuff nobody talks about in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

1) Dark Samus is capable of individual spaceflight. This is implied in the bonus end cutscene of Echoes, but confirmed in the Pirate Data in Corruption. At one point she leaves the Pirate battleship Colossus and just... goes to Phaaze? On her own? The log mentions she is gone for a long time, but AU 242 states that Phaaze is too far away for even conventional warp travel - this implies Dark Samus is also capable of either a HUGE warp factor (unlikely) or can create similar, but probably much smaller-scale wormholes to the Leviathans (more likely, but still very scary).

1a) Dark Samus’s psionic influence is strong enough to reach out to Samus all the way from the Pirate Homeworld (where she appears emerging from stasis in the very first intro cutscene) even before Samus is corrupted. There’s loose implication throughout the series that Samus is psionic-sensitive but not really capable of communication on her own, but we get confirmation that Dark Samus becomes a (powerful) telepath in the Pirate Data in Corruption.

2) The Galactic Federation are extracting fuel gel from Bryyo in the midst of an ongoing tribal war. A huge philosophical and societal schism tore Bryyo apart, literally and figuratively - the Lords of Science and Primalists battled for control of the planet and their war scorched the environment, leaving only a small habitable band around the equator. And the GF are just casually extracting resources from this planet, which nominally is still home to a population of sentients. According to the Bryyo Data logs, by the present time the Primalists have become “as savage as the predator beasts of the wild” but they’re obviously still capable of organization and tool use so they’re not animals. And this has been going on for a while, Federation data notes that Bryyo was discovered about a decade ago. It’s possible they made some initial efforts to keep peace and broker the establishment of their extraction sites, but no such negotiations or any relationship between the Reptilicus and the Federation are discussed in any scans as far as I can find.

3) Samus missed direct contact with the Elysians, a mechanical race created by the Chozo, by two weeks. Some quick math yields that the Federation came to Elysia about 15 years ago and brokered peace with the Elysian mechanoids, and Elysian logs mention watching the Phazon Crisis in real time: seeing a Leviathan strike a planet (either Urtraghus or Aether, probably the former) about 5 months before the game’s events, another leviathan striking their own planet only a month before, and a specific callout to the two week period after impact before Ghor appeared and was subsequently corrupted. The logs are written by an Elysian who has accepted their destruction either by phazon corruption or at the hands of the Pirates. We don’t know if there are any surviving Elysians still in stasis.

4) There are, according to scans and one of the Metroid Prime 3 promo trailers, thousands of Aurora Units in existence, all produced within the last 20 years. The highest number mentioned in canon is in Corruption, AU 486, which is credited with terraforming the planet Norion; an incredible technological undertaking. (Given that there are so many but we only have numbers up to the 400s, it’s possible that the more “civilian” units, those mentioned to be in government and business, might have a separate numbering scheme, or go by other names/designations.) AUs are huge and hyperintelligent synthetic organisms, but we don’t know what they’re grown from, or where, or how they are instructed and socialized. It’s also loosely implied (at least to my reading, and by several close associations with the Chozo-made Mother Brain) that the Aurora network hinges on their psionic as well as digital capabilities, hence 313′s ability to interface with Phaaze with minimal additional hardware.

4a) Assuming the Aurora network became corrupted remotely, this implies that the “virulent strain of phazon” that is responsible can be transmitted digitally, or possibly manifested psionically, in a target. Essentially, being in network-contact with AU 313 may have caused other Auroras to essentially psychosomatically infect themselves, with no transfer of actual physical phazon material.