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The primary purpose of this thread is to debunk a feat that is currently the basis for the Metroid series' Low 4-C ratings, which is characters scaling to the Light of Aether, an energy that supposedly is equal to the planet Aether's Mass-energy conversion. The way in which the characters scale to this is a bit complicated, since there are a few ways in which this could happen, each associated with a character: Dark Samus, Samus Aran and the Emperor Ing. I will be going through each of these, explaining why I do not believe that they scale to this alleged feat, and then will be discussing the feat itself.
Before getting into that, I will attempt to summarize what the Light of Aether is, what its link to Aether and Dark Aether is, and what its role in the story of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is. This may sound like a waste of time, but it is quite important to the feat proper. If you would like to get it straight from the source, I encourage you to read all of Metroid Prime 2's Luminoth Lore, which essentially contains most of the Light's... well, lore (Keybearer Lore and A-Kul's Clues aren't relevant, only the History is).
The claim is that Dark Aether's destruction, and the Light of Aether itself, are the Mass-energy conversion of half of Aether's mass. Aether is transformed into the Light of Aether, which is transformed into Dark Aether, as I understand it. Before I get into why I disagree, I should say that since my interactions with the Metroid fandom (Well, the Metroid VSBW community- I am part of the Fandom) started off on the wrong foot, I would ask everyone in this thread to please try to take my arguments in good faith and engage with them calmly- In response, I will do the same.
We actually get a pretty straightforward definition of what the Light of Aether is when we first scan Aether's Main Energy Controller: it is said to hold "a collection of several types of energy. Notable types include solar, bio, and geothermal energy". This is already a mark against the original assumption: it tells us that the Light of Aether is a collection of Aether's planetary energies that the Luminoth simply stored safely, as for whatever reason, it sustains the planet of Aether. There's even a statement that if it all was taken Aether would be destroyed by violent climate shifts and tectonic movements - that doesn't really sound like a planet being converted into energy. We even see the removal of the Light beginning to affect Dark Aether: Whenever Samus gets some of the Light back, the skies in that area turn red. Furthermore, the Light existed, and after MP2 exists again, at the same time as Aether in its entirety. It could not possibly be the energy conversion of half of Aether's mass, because it exists at the same time as all of that mass.
Now, the argument is that it's Dark Aether that's converted into energy, not Aether, but it's obvious these two are in the same situation. Both are parallel version of the same planet created by the Leviathan's impact having some form of chain reaction with the Light of Aether. The Light split between them and is barely sustaining them, and when one (Dark Aether) is deprived of all of it, it collapses. There's really little evidence at all that point towards any of this being E=mc^2, and we have very clear standards on Mass-Energy conversion feats: "Matter-energy conversion should only be used for a calculation if it is clearly stated that this is the progress used.". This is simply not the case- to my knowledge there isn't even a vague allusion of the Light of Aether being used to create Dark Aether, but even that would not be enough- the page makes that very clear.
Agree: 5 (11 Total): Armorchompy (Apparently I can do this lol), SeijiSetto, CrimsonStarFallen, thetechmaster36, CloverDragon03, Maverick_Zero_X, DMUA, Dust Collector, Chariot190, Deagonx, Qawsedf
Disagree: 1 (4 Total): JJSliderman, SomebodyData, DarkDragonMedeus, StretchSebe
Neutral:
Before getting into that, I will attempt to summarize what the Light of Aether is, what its link to Aether and Dark Aether is, and what its role in the story of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is. This may sound like a waste of time, but it is quite important to the feat proper. If you would like to get it straight from the source, I encourage you to read all of Metroid Prime 2's Luminoth Lore, which essentially contains most of the Light's... well, lore (Keybearer Lore and A-Kul's Clues aren't relevant, only the History is).
Aether is the planet on which Metroid Prime 2 takes place. Long ago, it was colonized by the peaceful moth-like Luminoth, who quickly realized that Aether's "planetary energy supply reached a critical stage. If left unchecked, the energy would expire, bringing an end to the world. [Their] greatest minds devised a way to preserve and regulate the remaining planetary energy - the Energy Controllers.". This, essentially, is the Light of Aether. Aether's planetary energy (which on its own would dissipate, and due to somewhat vague reasons, bring forth the end of Aether), which the Luminoth collected (to prevent it from dissipating) into Energy Controllers, which they put inside their temples.
This all went well, until one day the Luminoth noticed a meteorite streaking towards their planet, one too big for them to stop. This meteorite was actually a Leviathan, which is a thing with a bunch of lore attached to it, but I don't think that's immediately important towards this feat. It caused a lot of damage, but as the Luminoth eventually found, its worst effect on Aether is that it had warped the space around it, and somehow split it into two dimensional parallels: Aether (Which I will refer to as "Light Aether" to distinguish it from its other half), which the Luminoth inhabited, and Dark Aether, inhabited by the evil Ing. Worse than that, half of the Light of Aether was gone, transferred to Dark Aether, in the Ing's possession. The Luminoth were forced into a war that they eventually began to lose. Eventually, they developed the Energy Transfer Module, "a device designed to recover [their] lost planetary energy", and set out to invade the Ing's Sky Temple, where they kept most of their half of the Light of Aether. However, they failed, the Ing took the Device and used it to steal much of Light Aether's Light: Three of the four temples overrun and their energy taken. Only U-Mos, one last sentinel, remained to guard the Great Temple.
This is when the events of the game actually begin. Samus Aran lands on Aether, due to reasons that aren't important right now, accidentally recovers the Energy Transfer Module (which bonds with her suit) and meets U-Mos, who explains much of the situation to her. She sets out to help the Luminoth, adventuring through Aether and Dark Aether, defeating bosses and finding all four of the Ing's Energy Controllers, taking their energy and bringing it back to their Light Aether equivalent. The last of these collectors is guarded by the game's final boss(ish), Emperor Ing. Samus kills it and absorbs the Light it was guarding, which brings up a countdown and a warning: "Planetary condition critical! Escape at once!". Samus' escape is halted by Dark Samus: They fight, and Samus prevails as Dark Samus dissipates. Samus escapes Dark Aether with seconds to spare as the alternate planet collapses. She returns to the Luminoth, gives them the last of their energy back, and waves goodbye. In the stinger, we see Dark Samus reforming, somehow having survived her defeat at the hands of Samus.
The claim is that Dark Aether's destruction, and the Light of Aether itself, are the Mass-energy conversion of half of Aether's mass. Aether is transformed into the Light of Aether, which is transformed into Dark Aether, as I understand it. Before I get into why I disagree, I should say that since my interactions with the Metroid fandom (Well, the Metroid VSBW community- I am part of the Fandom) started off on the wrong foot, I would ask everyone in this thread to please try to take my arguments in good faith and engage with them calmly- In response, I will do the same.
Dark Samus
This one is going to be relatively brief, because I don't know if anyone actually believes this is a legitimate source of scaling to the feat, but it is on the profiles right now, so I should address it. Dark Samus' profile claims that "Not even a pocket realm collapsing on her or a massive planet exploding could kill her, rather leaving her only in a damaged state that she could recover from". I don't believe this works.- Let's assume that the destruction of Dark Aether is Low 4-C. Realistically, Dark Samus would only be exposed to a small portion of its destruction, because of inverse square law- Dark Samus' size is very tiny compared to the entire planet, across which the energy is spread.
- Even if that wasn't the case, surviving the Mass-energy conversion of Dark Aether cannot possibly expose her to Low 4-C energies, given that those energies were spent taken by Samus and brought to Light Aether. Hard to tank something if it's not there. All the survived was the (probably untierable) collapse of Dark Aether.
- It's straight-up stated that Dark Samus survived the destruction of Dark Aether because her particles floated into space, and she regenerated from that (Source).
- Finally, if Samus does not escape in time, she is killed by the destruction of Dark Aether, despite being at least comparable to Dark Samus at this point.
Samus (Not Dark)
Samus' profile claims that she "Continously absorbed the Light of Aether, a fraction of which can stabilize the planet, with no notable increase in power". All of that is very true (Well, sort of. A fraction of the Light of Aether can't permanently stabilize the planet, at minimum a majority of it is needed, but that's secondary). However, the implication here that she is gaining power from the Light of Aether is provably false.- The Energy Transfer Module is never stated, hinted or implied to empower Samus' equipment. This is a complete fabrication- to the point that it's difficult to me to "prove" that it isn't correct, given that there's just no reason it would even be assumed. The only things it allows her to do are transfer the Light of Aether, and become immune to the Ing's possession.
- If Samus actually did use that energy to attack or power her suit, it would be wasted, and that is the one thing she cannot afford to do- the Luminoth's survival hinges on her bringing it back to them.
- Even if we assume that Samus is capable and willing to wield the Light in combat anyways, we know for sure that she never uses any relevant portion of it- because then, it would no longer be in her possession, and simply disperse away. Even if she just expended 1% of her Light of Aether with every shot, she would quickly run out of all of it, which she clearly does not.
Emperor Ing
Emperor Ing's profile claims that it "Absorbed Dark Aether's half of the Light of Aether, putting it at half of the energy produced in Dark Aether's destruction, which it actively uses even in its weaker forms". The base statement is correct: Emperor Ing is straight-up stated to siphon energy from the Energy Controller.- The issue with this is the same as the issue with Samus' scaling to the Light of Aether: If it actually expended a significant portion of the energy in combat, then it would no longer be there for Samus to grab afterwards.
- And keep in mind, Emperor Ing is fighting to protect this Light, it would make no sense for it to consume so much of it, considering it is aware that it would mean the destruction of Dark Aether.
- Even if you don't believe in the above, there's a simpler issue- even in a vacuum, there's absolutely no reason to assume that Emperor Ing did absorb all or a majority of the Light of Aether, or that it even can do it. No statement implies it is capable of that, and the Logbook even states that absorbing what energy it does take is an overtime thing for it. [Important to note, most of the same reasoning also applies for Samus herself].
The Light of Aether is not Low 4-C
All of the counterarguments I just listed are true- I think, at least- but sort of unimportant. The base assumption behind the Light of Aether's tiering is that it is a Mass-energy conversion of half of Aether's... mass. At surface value this can make sense, it after all allows for a clone of Aether to be created, and once that energy is absorbed, said clone disappears. However, further research led me to disagreeing.We actually get a pretty straightforward definition of what the Light of Aether is when we first scan Aether's Main Energy Controller: it is said to hold "a collection of several types of energy. Notable types include solar, bio, and geothermal energy". This is already a mark against the original assumption: it tells us that the Light of Aether is a collection of Aether's planetary energies that the Luminoth simply stored safely, as for whatever reason, it sustains the planet of Aether. There's even a statement that if it all was taken Aether would be destroyed by violent climate shifts and tectonic movements - that doesn't really sound like a planet being converted into energy. We even see the removal of the Light beginning to affect Dark Aether: Whenever Samus gets some of the Light back, the skies in that area turn red. Furthermore, the Light existed, and after MP2 exists again, at the same time as Aether in its entirety. It could not possibly be the energy conversion of half of Aether's mass, because it exists at the same time as all of that mass.
Now, the argument is that it's Dark Aether that's converted into energy, not Aether, but it's obvious these two are in the same situation. Both are parallel version of the same planet created by the Leviathan's impact having some form of chain reaction with the Light of Aether. The Light split between them and is barely sustaining them, and when one (Dark Aether) is deprived of all of it, it collapses. There's really little evidence at all that point towards any of this being E=mc^2, and we have very clear standards on Mass-Energy conversion feats: "Matter-energy conversion should only be used for a calculation if it is clearly stated that this is the progress used.". This is simply not the case- to my knowledge there isn't even a vague allusion of the Light of Aether being used to create Dark Aether, but even that would not be enough- the page makes that very clear.
Conclusion (Proposed Changes)
The Low 4-C rating should be removed from all Metroid pages. In its place, characters should be listed as "At least 5-B", upscaling from Samus' Varia Suit. Samus in MP3, following the current scaling, goes from "Varies, at least Low 4-C to Unknown" to "Varies, at least 5-B to far higher", and people scale to either "At least 5-B", or "At least 5-B, likely far higher" depending on when they fight her.Agree: 5 (11 Total): Armorchompy (Apparently I can do this lol), SeijiSetto, CrimsonStarFallen, thetechmaster36, CloverDragon03, Maverick_Zero_X, DMUA, Dust Collector, Chariot190, Deagonx, Qawsedf
Disagree: 1 (4 Total): JJSliderman, SomebodyData, DarkDragonMedeus, StretchSebe
Neutral:
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