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r/Metroid•
13irth2

Metroid Fusion Zombie Scientist Question

Discussion

The X mimic their host. Samus absorbs the X when she kills the host right?

So when you kill a zombie scientist in the early parts of the game why do they stay as a gelatinous blob that crawls on the floor? (And some of them get a new X parasite)

I don't recall this happening with other enemies in the game. Usually they disappear completely and you absorb the X.

I always dismissed it as just a way to refill your missiles since you have so few in the beginning. But I'm looking for some kind of reason or theory outside of gameplay meta.

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Edit: It seems according to the manual they're zombie corpses and not mimics. I wonder why the corpse goo piles crawl on the floor without the X inside it though... Unless maybe it's micro X or something that we can't see

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^(Also Metroid Fusion was my first introduction into the Metroid universe. I played it along Prime when I was 10. And from there I became a huge fan. I'm 24 now. Crazy how time flies. Also this is my first post here)

Posted Dec 19, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC · edited

3013
TheMetroidTsar77•

Welcome new poster 😁

Tbh I think it's just the devs try to keep a Sprite on screen for regeneration purposes, instead of respawning enemies from nothing like in old nes games

13
13irth2OP•

But other enemies in the game don't do that

4
Paraboxia•

No, for other enemies they use background sprites. There's of course X that won't float around once formless, scripted to reform as a specific enemy. The reforming corpses were just made sense thematically if I'd have to guess.

2
notjustakorgsupporte•

The manual says that the zombie scientists are corpses controlled by X parasites

10
13irth2OP•

Oh that makes sense then. I lost the manual when I was a kid

1
13irth2OP•

But even as corpses why does the corpse goo pile crawl around on the floor

1
notjustakorgsupporte•

I don't remember the slime moving by itself. Here's what the wiki says "The exact explanation for this remains unknown; it is speculated in the manual that the humans were infected by X which had previously infested slime bioforms, though Adam later hypothesizes that the X use human hosts as sustenance after their knowledge is assimilated"

3
13irth2OP•

oh the wiki mentions that? I shoulda checked there first before reddit.. oh well

but yea that's kinda a neat idea that they were infected already

1
TheMetroidTsar77•

Just seemed to notice that right now my bad lol

6
PowerBrawler2122•

More based in the lore, I personally have an opinion as to why it is. Maybe it's a an excess pool of dna etc on the ground, and since the X do replicate their host's dna, maybe it's possible to recover the host's"body" from a pool of blood or something. Just an idea, but I do share the same curiosity.

3
MavyP•

Its not like nintendo to showcase gore even in metroid titles. Everything explodes like machinery even creepy crawling critters.

In the title screen for super metroid, the color of the blood for scientists was changed to purple. Even as a kid I questioned if it was blood but wasnt sure so the color change was effective.

So its probably just a way for nintendo allowing you to shoot at what would-be human zombies without making it gorey or horrifying. They made them PG purple blobs that wore scientist shirts. It still got the idea across without making it PG 13 or R for human violence.

Cannon-wise I guess it could be explained that the more advanced a creature is, the longer it takes for the X to mimic and stabalize the form. So while the X could perfectly copy smaller critters and brainless, aggro animals; humans take a while to clone because they are bigger and have more complicated organs (like our brains). You can see the X hosts destabilize the more you deal damage (like Nightmare) so its not beyond the real of possibility that youre never really killing the zombie hosts but weakening it and more X are needed to take full form. This is why they move around like blobs becuase there is some X wthin it but not enough to clone entirely.

3
RabanastranGuard•

Right, op is asking why the corpse continues to move after you've absorbed it's X parasite

2
sa735713•

I thought this too. Maybe the human body is too fragile and x determined it to not be a suitable host.

2