Metroid - Rounding off the downgrades (2/2)

[Armorchompy]

Ship Travel Speed​

Metroid characters currently get their MFTL+ ratings from ships' capacity to travel across intergalactic distances, thanks to Samus' Speed Booster being capable of significantly amplifying the speed of one (Feat has the same context as the Ice Beam/Power Bomb ones so, judge for yourself if that works) and based off Meta Ridley outspeeding Samus' ship in Prime.

Now there isn't an issue with the scaling (With the latter, anyways, assuming the booster is a static addition to speed rather than a multiplier is weird and saying it has the exact same potency on man-sized power armor that moves by running and a spaceship with rocket engines is weirder), the issue is that for the sake of interstellar travel, spaceships in Metroid's universe use some form of "jump" technology that clearly uses some form of hyperspace travel, this is seen most prominently in the Zero Mission manga and in Corruption, but also Prime 1, Hunters, Other M and Samus & Joey. (Notably this includes both sources of scaling). The obvious problem this creates is that the "jump" (we're just gonna call it that) has some unmistakable visual clues (a big flash at the start and then the ship going invisible or turning into a trail of light) which aren't just a shorthand for speed but the ships de-materializing from 3D space: these aren't seen in either the Speed Booster case or while chasing Ridley. Even if we want to say this isn't working like the common conception of hyperspace, it's obviously specifically some means to travel across large distances that doesn't scale to their "normal" capacity to fly.

Something I'll pre-emptively address is that while we don't see a "jump" every time space travel happens given it's often done off-screen (Or once during a scene inside Samus' ship, with no sight of the outside, in S&J), there is absolutely no instance of any ship crossing the depths of space without a "jump" (Besides the race in S&J but that happens across two planets, a much lesser distance, and it's a race, treating it as a valid example is like saying that because we've seen Usain Bolt run on foot he's never taken a plane). With such strong consistency for the jumps, it'd be silly to assume something is an exception just because it happens off-screen. There are some smaller scale travel speed feats that would still scale to all of this though.

Other Travel Speed feats​

Ridley allegedly "flew from SR388 to Ceres and from Ceres to Zebes, both in a fairly short span of time". The reasoning here, I think, is that he can fly, and that we don't see him take a ship. Shit I guess Usain really did just run all the way to Beijing/London/Brazil/etc. Obviously, this at best grants the possibility of Ridley having done so, not proof or even likelihood that it happened. Worth keeping in mind is that we know Ridley utilizes spaceships to travel, we see it in Zero Mission and in the manga, so it's not even that he doesn't do so when possible. And it would be possible for him because obviously all of Super Metroid (and his appearance in Samus Returns) is a big plot by Mother Brain/The Space Pirates (aka the exact same people he was working with in ZM/manga where he does use ships). Now admittedly, Samus didn't see a Space Pirate ship near the colony, but that's not evidence Ridley didn't use one to cover most of the distance, he just parked it a bit away so he could take Ceres' inhabitants by surprise (which is his tactic of choice in literally every game), or worst case was dropped and then flew to Zebes on his own, which might not even get to MFTL+ given timeframe and unknown distance.

Gorea "Wiped out almost all life in a galaxy during a one-sided "war" which lasted three months". This doesn't presently scale to Samus (Gorea is fought in a weakened state) but I thought I should tackle it anyways (All context cited in this paragraph comes from Alimbic Lore). So first off, the "almost all life in the galaxy" bit isn't true. The Alimbics worried about "the possibility that [Gorea] would sweep the galaxy", that if they "did not stop GOREA, it would rampage across the galaxy", but this never actually happened. However we do know that within that war "Death swept across [their] worlds" and that "it swept through [their] empire in an orgy of annihilation", which is notable, since the Alimbics did control planets across the entire galaxy*, which isn't nearly the same as the profile's claim but still very noteworthy, given at least a large quantity of them was reached and destroyed by Gorea. However, flying across planets (even an entire galaxy's) is just travel speed, nothing more, and that wouldn't scale to Samus' reactions even if Gorea didn't have his power sealed when she fought him, given that he mostly just hovers in place and moves around very slowly when fighting her. Devastating entire planets quickly is a speed feat (at worst attack speed, if you assume it was done in one blast), but not as impressive of one, and very difficult to estimate.

*"This area was once under ALIMBIC control. Ruins detected on various planets indicate a vast civilization" - Tetra Galaxy, Logbook

White holes​

A simple one to close things off. Samus' Animus-powered state is 3-A because "With the power granted to her by the Animus, Samus was able to nullify the black holes that were going to consume the universe with white holes". Again, true, but sort of missing the point. The black holes were going to consume the universe... in the way that black holes would. They spread and consume anything, with Greed's presumably doing so at an accelerated page, but even so they say that "at this rate the entire universe will be swallowed up", which pretty clearly states it to be an overtime thing. I've calculated as a rather powerful black hole feat at Low 4-C+, but it's not universal. She would however still be High 3-A overtime, given her power's the opposite of Greed's, which would be that eventually (Metroid universe is infinite, btw, off the MP art booklet)

When this thread ends, we will (eventually, still gotta calc a few things) make a new one to replace the verse's ratings, and then a few more to overhaul P&A and profiles of the verse.

 

[Yasuda_144]

I mostly agree with all of this, but there is one thing I do have to say: Black Holes do not work anything like that. Yes, they consume shit and get bigger as a result, but fundamentally their gravitational pull isn't somehow turbocharged compared to that of the star they used to be before collapsing. There wouldn't be any kind of runaway chain reaction threatening the entire universe from these ones in particular unless there's something really weird going on there.

Admittedly Metroid as a franchise frequently has weird ideas about actual science, such as the "matter-antimatter" Annihilator Beam being powered by metaphysical light/dark energy of some kind.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Looks good

 

[Armorchompy]

I mostly agree with all of this, but there is one thing I do have to say: Black Holes do not work anything like that. Yes, they consume shit and get bigger as a result, but fundamentally their gravitational pull isn't somehow turbocharged compared to that of the star they used to be before collapsing. There wouldn't be any kind of runaway chain reaction threatening the entire universe from these ones in particular unless there's something really weird going on there.

That's fair enough, they were definitely not behaving like normal BHs. I suppose Greed might have been continuously feeding more power into them? We do know it's over time either way.

 

[Chariot190]

Agreed.

tbf, i think Riddles did fly from Ceres to Zebes, but im also like 95% sure Ceres is in the same solar system, with Ridley taking an unknown time to do so anyway so like, not usable either way.

I mostly agree with all of this, but there is one thing I do have to say: Black Holes do not work anything like that. Yes, they consume shit and get bigger as a result, but fundamentally their gravitational pull isn't somehow turbocharged compared to that of the star they used to be before collapsing. There wouldn't be any kind of runaway chain reaction threatening the entire universe from these ones in particular unless there's something really weird going on there.

Admittedly Metroid as a franchise frequently has weird ideas about actual science, such as the "matter-antimatter" Annihilator Beam being powered by metaphysical light/dark energy of some kind.

The black holes were spontaneously popping up everywhere in the universe, low 4-C is for one, High 3-A is for the fucktillion+1 he was making that would have obliterated the whole uni.

 

[Yasuda_144]

Yeah, it's kind of a weird feat in the first place, but even over time it'd still be High 3-A since there's no finite length of time that'd really matter there.

(As an aside, apparently according to the Metroid Wiki the old Retro website listed Samus' Gunship's top speed as "relativistic" but also 7.3 * 10 c, aka 73 times the speed of light. Apparently the people writing the lore just don't know math very well.)

 

[Chariot190]

Yeah, it's kind of a weird feat in the first place, but even over time it'd still be High 3-A since there's no finite length of time that'd really matter there.

(As an aside, apparently according to the Metroid Wiki the old Retro website listed Samus' Gunship's top speed as "relativistic" but also 7.3 * 10 c, aka 73 times the speed of light. Apparently the people writing the lore just don't know math very well.)

Yeah we know, like 90% sure they meant ^10, all things considered, but they just really ain't good with actual science (960g planets, whatever the **** is going on in Prime 2, a relativistic ship being 73x the speed of light covering hundreds of thousands of lightyears in a few months, etc).
(That's apparently max velocity too so even more fucky).

 

[Arceus0x]

The black holes were spontaneously popping up everywhere in the universe, low 4-C is for one, High 3-A is for the fucktillion+1 he was making that would have obliterated the whole uni.

I know nothing of Metroid but like, if the universe is infinite, wouldn't an overtime feat still be infinite since infinity/whatever number is still infinity?

 

[JJSliderman]

A lot of this is fine to me, but I disagree with a few aspects.

In regards to the ship travel, I’ll acknowledge that instances like traveling to the Tetra galaxy use hyperspace since that’s very visibly shown. But I disagree with the instance of traveling to the Extreme Galaxy.

When the chapter starts we clearly see Samus’ ship still moving in standard 3-D space (or at least the same space as the galaxy she’s traveling to), and the panel of her arriving at the galaxy is also shown in 3-D space. In the one page between them is a map showing Samus’ distance to the galaxy, and the distance is portrayed as pretty small due to her being so close, to the point that if she was using hyperdrive she probably would have been doing it in the panel beforehand instead of waiting until she was that close to engage it. I think it’s fair to say Samus’ ship did travel the distance seen on the map in 3D space, given we don’t see the ship in hyperdrive at the start of that distance.

With Ridley, he somehow managed to get off Norion and to the pirate homeworld in a month, despite Norion being a federation planet and Ridley being at the bottom of a chasm half-dead, so it seems unlikely he could use a ship at that point. But I don’t really have a solid counter, although Ridley has not visibly used ships to travel since Frigate Orpheon.

With Gorea, his power wasn’t sealed for the whole fight. By the second phase all of the Alimbic power sealing Gorea had dissipated, meaning Gorea had nothing restricting him (Seal Sphere 3). There’s also statements that Gorea would wreak havoc across the entire universe, which is another thing to his travel speed. Alimbic lore also dictates that Gorea would devour and annihilate everything in its path as it traveled across the galaxy/universe, which implies Gorea would be able to destroy things while it was moving.

With the white hole, it should remain as 3-A. The Animus only granted Samus one white hole visibly, since they just acknowledged it as a white hole, not multiple white holes, and we only see one on screen, unlike the multiple black holes. (Page 21). This white hole canceled out all of the black holes combined, so reasonably it should be able to cancel out a universe’s worth of black holes as well.

 

[Armorchompy]

When the chapter starts we clearly see Samus’ ship still moving in standard 3-D space (or at least the same space as the galaxy she’s traveling to), and the panel of her arriving at the galaxy is also shown in 3-D space. In the one page between them is a map showing Samus’ distance to the galaxy, and the distance is portrayed as pretty small due to her being so close, to the point that if she was using hyperdrive she probably would have been doing it in the panel beforehand instead of waiting until she was that close to engage it. I think it’s fair to say Samus’ ship did travel the distance seen on the map in 3D space, given we don’t see the ship in hyperdrive at the start of that distance.

That is a fair point. We do however see a huge energy effect around the ship which isn't present in the panel before though, and that notably isn't even seen in the Speed Booster race, so I wouldn't be confident in scaling this to Samus.

With Ridley, he somehow managed to get off Norion and to the pirate homeworld in a month, despite Norion being a federation planet and Ridley being at the bottom of a chasm half-dead, so it seems unlikely he could use a ship at that point. But I don’t really have a solid counter, although Ridley has not visibly used ships to travel since Frigate Orpheon.

Norion is weird but like, it's weird no matter what, they'd definitely have shot him down if they caught him flying away.

With Gorea, his power wasn’t sealed for the whole fight. By the second phase all of the Alimbic power sealing Gorea had dissipated, meaning Gorea had nothing restricting him (Seal Sphere 3).

The same scan also states that he's currently drawing his power back from the sphere, which is telling us he doesn't have all of it yet.

With the white hole, it should remain as 3-A. The Animus only granted Samus one white hole visibly, since they just acknowledged it as a white hole, not multiple white holes, and we only see one on screen, unlike the multiple black holes. (Page 21). This white hole canceled out all of the black holes combined, so reasonably it should be able to cancel out a universe’s worth of black holes as well.

We just see one being made because we see one black hole being destroyed, doesn't mean it was just that one. They straight-up say the power is opposite to Greed's so it'd be weird for just one to be equal to all of them. Keep in mind a white hole is (sort of) a real thing that is an opposite of a black hole.

 

[Chariot190]

When the chapter starts we clearly see Samus’ ship still moving in standard 3-D space (or at least the same space as the galaxy she’s traveling to), and the panel of her arriving at the galaxy is also shown in 3-D space. In the one page between them is a map showing Samus’ distance to the galaxy, and the distance is portrayed as pretty small due to her being so close, to the point that if she was using hyperdrive she probably would have been doing it in the panel beforehand instead of waiting until she was that close to engage it. I think it’s fair to say Samus’ ship did travel the distance seen on the map in 3D space, given we don’t see the ship in hyperdrive at the start of that distance.

Tbf, most of that scene is in the cockpit. But you might be right, though the ship has a cool energy effect not seen anywhere else, a chunk of which can't be chalked up to re-entry, so....
if that's the ONLY instance we can actually confirm, that goes against every other showing and lore involving space travel, it might just be a fucky

With Ridley, he somehow managed to get off Norion and to the pirate homeworld in a month, despite Norion being a federation planet and Ridley being at the bottom of a chasm half-dead, so it seems unlikely he could use a ship at that point. But I don’t really have a solid counter, although Ridley has not visibly used ships to travel since Frigate Orpheon.

Yeah problem right there, a month, he had so much time to grab a ship, call for aid, etc.
The fact Ridley visibly uses ships no less than 5 times says a lot tho.

I know nothing of Metroid but like, if the universe is infinite, wouldn't an overtime feat still be infinite since infinity/whatever number is still infinity?

More like a range feat and the High 3-A is ED.

 

[JJSliderman]

That is a fair point. We do however see a huge energy effect around the ship which isn't present in the panel before though, and that notably isn't even seen in the Speed Booster race, so I wouldn't be confident in scaling this to Samus.

Well, there is an aura of sorts in the speed booster race (page 27).

Norion is weird but like, it's weird no matter what, they'd definitely have shot him down if they caught him flying away.

Samus probably also would have dealt with a random ship that was parked near a space station.

The same scan also states that he's currently drawing his power back from the sphere, which is telling us he doesn't have all of it yet.

It just says he’s drawing power from the sphere, not necessarily his own power. Gorea is known for absorbing power from technology, which the seal sphere is. The Alimbic lore stated that the Alimbics psychic powers are what ensnared Gorea, and there was no more of that as the fight continued.

We just see one being made because we see one black hole being destroyed, doesn't mean it was just that one. They straight-up say the power is opposite to Greed's so it'd be weird for just one to be equal to all of them. Keep in mind a white hole is (sort of) a real thing that is an opposite of a black hole.

The way the panels are framed it looks more like this single white hole expanded from the temple outward, eventually reaching the final panel where it encompasses a large portion of space.

 

[Armorchompy]

Well, there is an aura of sorts in the speed booster race (page 27).

True, but only when accelerating at absolute peak speed at the time the race is essentially over. I dunno, with the Morph Ball chapter thing as the only feat, I feel like there's enough vagueness that I'd rather not use it still.

Samus probably also would have dealt with a random ship that was parked near a space station.

I mean yeah, it doesn't really make sense either way.

It just says he’s drawing power from the sphere, not necessarily his own power. Gorea is known for absorbing power from technology, which the seal sphere is. The Alimbic lore stated that the Alimbics psychic powers are what ensnared Gorea, and there was no more of that as the fight continued.

He copies technology, he doesn't absorb its power and with the psychic powers gone there wouldn't be much to even get. I dunno I think he's just sucking his own energy back.

The way the panels are framed it looks more like this single white hole expanded from the temple outward, eventually reaching the final panel where it encompasses a large portion of space.

Eh, it's space, not many reference points, it's hard to get how much was encompassed either way.

 

[JJSliderman]

True, but only when accelerating at absolute peak speed at the time the race is essentially over.

If this is an effect achieved when the ship is going at incredible speed, then couldn’t that just be applied to the EG travel.

He copies technology, he doesn't absorb its power and with the psychic powers gone there wouldn't be much to even get. I dunno I think he's just sucking his own energy back.

Gorea can absorb energy from other beings and entities, he did that with the Alimbics. And the seal sphere is something that can tank the omega cannon multiple times even without psychic powers, so it definitely has merits that Gorea would want to take.

Eh, it's space, not many reference points, it's hard to get how much was encompassed either way.

It at least expanded across the galaxy, given that they stated the black holes had spread across the galaxy by this point.

 

[Armorchompy]

If this is an effect achieved when the ship is going at incredible speed, then couldn’t that just be applied to the EG travel.

EG?

Gorea can absorb energy from other beings and entities, he did that with the Alimbics. And the seal sphere is something that can tank the omega cannon multiple times even without psychic powers, so it definitely has merits that Gorea would want to take.

I mean, that's not impossible but it doesn't mean he couldn't just be taking his own power back either.

It at least expanded across the galaxy, given that they stated the black holes had spread across the galaxy by this point.

That's if you assume it was one white hole for all of them, which again I wouldn't.

 

[JJSliderman]

EG?

Extreme Galaxy. The aura in chapter 2 could just be a result of the ship going really fast, if this kind of thing has precedence in the same manga and there is overall no direct sign of hyperdrive.

It’s very brief but, there’s also a point at the end of Prime Hunters where Samus’s ship moves very fast into the distance, seemingly without HD, as well as somehow her ship getting into and out of the infinity void parallel universe with no visual use of hyperdrive (although maybe the Alimbics teleported it in this case)

I mean, that's not impossible but it doesn't mean he couldn't just be taking his own power back either.

I get that, since they state that Gorea’s power is the engine that powers the seal sphere alongside the Alimbic psychic essence. But then that means Samus is capable of scaling to at least a percentage of Gorea.

That's if you assume it was one white hole for all of them, which again I wouldn't.

I’m just going by what the manga itself shows, which is that Animus has one white hole appear in Samus’s hands, she reaches out for one white hole in the next set of panels, then a reaction shot of everyone looking at a single white hole which is expanding outward. I get the idea that the white holes match the black holes, but that’s more in potency than in number. Ultimately both achieve the effect of expanding across the universe and destroying/creating the universe, but nothing deconfirmed the idea of doing it in different ways.

 

[Chariot190]

Extreme Galaxy. The aura in chapter 2 could just be a result of the ship going really fast, if this kind of thing has precedence in the same manga and there is overall no direct sign of hyperdrive.

My dude, ya ain't understanding, if the verse, in numerous games, books, and more, establishes ships' have a normal speed, and then for large distances, they use warp technology, and they show this constantly, every time, dozens of times, then a manga just so happens to have an instance where they might not have used it for MFTL (before the verse goes back to showing warps everytime), do you really think that's consistent? Or that they even scale to the one off burst speed that might be a fucky?

if that's the sole time, it'd be an outlier, not even for just stats, but an actual outlier in how they work. Like why would this ship be special? Why is this the only ship in all of Metroid that doesn't need warp for MFTL when the best ship in the Federation takes hours with warp to cover a galaxy? cant be chozo tech btw because that ship was made by the Galactid Federation according to Prime 2.

It’s very brief but, there’s also a point at the end of Prime Hunters where Samus’s ship moves very fast into the distance, seemingly without HD

That isnt MFTL+ tho and might also literally be it entering hyperspace
Btw, nobody is saying we dont scale them to ships, just not when theyre going Hyperdrive. Which is where every hard confirmed MFTL+ feat comes from.... but ya know.

 

[JJSliderman]

My dude, ya ain't understanding, if the verse, in numerous games, books, and more, establishes ships' have a normal speed, and then for large distances, they use warp technology, and they show this constantly, every time, dozens of times, then a manga just so happens to have an instance where they might not have used it for MFTL (before the verse goes back to showing warps everytime), do you really think that's consistent?

It was a relatively short distance to reach the Extreme Galaxy, and Samus’s ship has done short trips outside of hyperspace before (mostly when exiting and entering planets). Maybe it’s not consistent, but there’s no overt signs this specific instance used hyperdrive. If you want to call it an outlier that’s a different thing which, I’m not a fan of, but accept.

Or that they even scale to the one off burst speed that might be a fucky?

They probably would scale, Samus is shown being able to take aim and fire at enemies while moving at speed booster-amped Samus ship speed, while having the Deadly Star inside his shinesparking ship react to Samus about to shoot him.

if that's the sole time, it'd be an outlier, not even for just stats, but an actual outlier in how they work. Like why would this ship be special? Why is this the only ship in all of Metroid that doesn't need warp for MFTL when the best ship in the Federation takes hours with warp to cover a galaxy? cant be chozo tech btw because that ship was made by the Galactid Federation according to Prime 2.

No one said the ship doesn’t use warp at all, it can still use warps for larger distances. And other games show that ships just straight up don’t use warps at a certain distance range, even in the style of multiple warp journies, according to Prime 3. So it’s possible that Samus just couldn’t warp directly to Extreme Galaxy (she doesn’t even have a star map of the place according to EX chapter 2 so she wouldn’t know where to warp to begin with)

That isnt MFTL+ tho and might also literally be it entering hyperspace
Btw, nobody is saying we dont scale them to ships, just not when theyre going Hyperdrive. Which is where every hard confirmed MFTL+ feat comes from.... but ya know.

I wasn’t suggesting scaling them to they hyperdrive, just the parts that seem like they’re not warping.

 

[SamanPatou]

I can see the booster-empowered ship not scaling to Samus' run, it does make sense given the context.

I'm unsure whether or not it really matters to pinpoint an exact speed for the ship if we don't scale it to Ridley anymore. While the latter did really escape, he had somewhat of a starting distance and Samus didn't seem to make any particular effort to chase after him, seemingly heading towards the planet's surface instead, so even the speed boost she activates doesn't seem directed towards Ridley. And with all the unknowns at play when it comes to his interplanetary travels, I don't think we can safely rate Ridley's travel speed.

About Gorea, full power or not, I'm unsure on scaling its supposed travel speed to Samus, as in the battle it doesn't really focus on speed tactics, it's more like a shooting contest and it just walks or hovers around. It is also able to teleport, so its space travels might be not entirely be performed through flight.

Lastly, given the nature of the White Hole, I wonder if we should consider it even as capable of any degree of ED. It does have 4-C / 3-A / Whatever sort of potency for nullifying the black holes, but at the same time isn't it nature specifically meant to reverse them? So it could be high levels of potency but only when it comes to Powernull black holes, while being unable to exert such force on other targets.

 

[JJSliderman]

I can see the booster-empowered ship not scaling to Samus' run, it does make sense given the context.

But Samus’s reactions would still scale to the booster empowered ship, because she could take aim at and blast enemies while riding on top of the ship going at that speed, and another person piloting a ship going at the same speed reacted to Samus about to shoot him.

I'm unsure whether or not it really matters to pinpoint an exact speed for the ship if we don't scale it to Ridley anymore. While the latter did really escape, he had somewhat of a starting distance and Samus didn't seem to make any particular effort to chase after him, seemingly heading towards the planet's surface instead, so even the speed boost she activates doesn't seem directed towards Ridley. And with all the unknowns at play when it comes to his interplanetary travels, I don't think we can safely rate Ridley's travel speed.

Because Ridley was also heading towards the planet, so Samus heading towards the planet was to chase him, and she wouldn’t have been on Tallon IV to begin with if she wasn’t chasing Ridley. Plus, Ridley hasn’t been seen visibly using a ship since the very beginning of Prime 1, all of his ship usages we see are at the beginning parts of the timeline. Him using ships offscreen for every one of his travels isn’t supported fully by the game.

About Gorea, full power or not, I'm unsure on scaling its supposed travel speed to Samus, as in the battle it doesn't really focus on speed tactics, it's more like a shooting contest and it just walks or hovers around. It is also able to teleport, so its space travels might be not entirely be performed through flight.

It’s first appearance has it travel as a comet and crash into Alinos’ surface, so it can do things with normal speed.

Lastly, given the nature of the White Hole, I wonder if we should consider it even as capable of any degree of ED. It does have 4-C / 3-A / Whatever sort of potency for nullifying the black holes, but at the same time isn't it nature specifically meant to reverse them? So it could be high levels of potency but only when it comes to Powernull black holes, while being unable to exert such force on other targets.

The goal of a white hole is to spit out new matter to replace the destroyed matter from a black hole, so it still has some degree of potency beyond power null.

 

[Armorchompy]

But Samus’s reactions would still scale to the booster empowered ship, because she could take aim at and blast enemies while riding on top of the ship going at that speed, and another person piloting a ship going at the same speed reacted to Samus about to shoot him.

The ships were flying at roughly equal speed, that means for someone standing on one shooting the other would be like shooting a (roughly) still target.

Because Ridley was also heading towards the planet, so Samus heading towards the planet was to chase him, and she wouldn’t have been on Tallon IV to begin with if she wasn’t chasing Ridley.

This was a different, older ship, btw.

It’s first appearance has it travel as a comet and crash into Alinos’ surface, so it can do things with normal speed.

It just wouldn't scale to its own travel speed.

The goal of a white hole is to spit out new matter to replace the destroyed matter from a black hole, so it still has some degree of potency beyond power null.

I agree with this. I don't actually think it was even powernull, I think she just matched the energy of the Black Holes with her White Holes.

 

[JJSliderman]

The ships were flying at roughly equal speed, that means for someone standing on one shooting the other would be like shooting a (roughly) still target.

Samus still had to climb on top of her ship without being thrown off, if she couldn’t react in time to grab the ship and climb on she would have been thrown off. Moreover, if the speed booster is a multiplier and not a static boost, then Samus is still scaling to her ship’s speed because she could pilot it around lasers and obstacles in a high speed race no problem.

This was a different, older ship, btw.

Samus’s ships being earlier in the timeline doesn’t seem to mean much for their overall ability, like the Prime 3 ship seems far more combat capable than the Super Metroid ship, while the SM ship seems overall far more durable. I haven’t seen anything pointing to the later ships being faster, though.

It just wouldn't scale to its own travel speed.

If Gorea is going around the universe destroying everything in its path, it should be able to react to obstacles coming towards it and either swerve around or stop to destroy it. Although I guess that would make its reactions <<< travel speed anyway.

 

[Armorchompy]

Samus still had to climb on top of her ship without being thrown off, if she couldn’t react in time to grab the ship and climb on she would have been thrown off. Moreover, if the speed booster is a multiplier and not a static boost, then Samus is still scaling to her ship’s speed because she could pilot it around lasers and obstacles in a high speed race no problem.

None of that requires reactions, she's already moving with the ship while inside it, she'd get flung off by the air resistance when stepping outside but that's a LS thing, not speed. As for scaling to the speed via piloting, yeah, she does, but all the dodging and weaving comes before all the big boosts happen.

To be clear I think there is an argument here, I just think that between the one showing of MFTL+ speed being ambiguous and sort of against the verse's usual portrayal, and the scaling being a "eh she probably reacted to things here?" I'd rather play it safe.

Samus’s ships being earlier in the timeline doesn’t seem to mean much for their overall ability, like the Prime 3 ship seems far more combat capable than the Super Metroid ship, while the SM ship seems overall far more durable. I haven’t seen anything pointing to the later ships being faster, though.

I haven't seen anything pointing to it being equally fast.

If Gorea is going around the universe destroying everything in its path, it should be able to react to obstacles coming towards it and either swerve around or stop to destroy it. Although I guess that would make its reactions <<< travel speed anyway.

That's just standard travel speed stuff, we don't really treat that as having reactions comparable to the speed.

 

[JJSliderman]

None of that requires reactions, she's already moving with the ship while inside it, she'd get flung off by the air resistance when stepping outside but that's a LS thing, not speed. As for scaling to the speed via piloting, yeah, she does, but all the dodging and weaving comes before all the big boosts happen.

But the travel to the extreme galaxy happened without the ultra speed booster.

To be clear I think there is an argument here, I just think that between the one showing of MFTL+ speed being ambiguous and sort of against the verse's usual portrayal, and the scaling being a "eh she probably reacted to things here?" I'd rather play it safe.

Could we at least get a possibly, since there are times in the series where warping is actually not the solution (like in Prime 3 where it was too far or here where Samus just didn’t have maps of the galaxy to know where to warp too, hence she stated they needed to fly around planets to make a star chart?)

I haven't seen anything pointing to it being equally fast.

I’m imagining the assumption is she made them faster because they have better feats, but that doesn’t seem like they intended to weave that into the story, it just seems like a coincidence. But okay, I’ll give you this one, it would make sense Samus makes her ships faster with better experience.

That's just standard travel speed stuff, we don't really treat that as having reactions comparable to the speed.

Yeah true, if there was a ratio for this kind of thing to get equivalent reaction speed I would like that, but I guess it’s too case by case.

 

[Armorchompy]

But the travel to the extreme galaxy happened without the ultra speed booster.

It did but there was some kind of boosting superior to what we see in the race before said ultra boost, given the energy surrounding the ship (could be acceleration over a much longer distance, could also honestly just be a different portrayal of the hyperspace tbh, big energy aura is sort of its main visual tell)

Could we at least get a possibly, since there are times in the series where warping is actually not the solution (like in Prime 3 where it was too far or here where Samus just didn’t have maps of the galaxy to know where to warp too, hence she stated they needed to fly around planets to make a star chart?)

They do warp in Prime 3, they just use the Leviathan. No clue how they got back but whatever, I think that's just a plot hole either ways, if they could just fly back they could also have done that on the way to Phaaze.

 

[JJSliderman]

It did but there was some kind of boosting superior to what we see in the race before said ultra boost, given the energy surrounding the ship (could be acceleration over a much longer distance, could also honestly just be a different portrayal of the hyperspace tbh, big energy aura is sort of its main visual tell)

Well Samus also visually curves her ship while the aura is active in the Extreme Galaxy travel scene, so she is controlling the ship’s path even in the scenario its speed is boosted. And if its speed was boosted, and the speed booster is a multiplier instead of a flat raise to a specific speed value, then that means Samus is just scaling to a fraction of the ship.

They do warp in Prime 3, they just use the Leviathan. No clue how they got back but whatever, I think that's just a plot hole either ways, if they could just fly back they could also have done that on the way to Phaaze.

They warp only because their own warp tech was insufficient, and for some reason they couldn’t do a multi-warp journey. And they did use the Leviathan on the way back. Actually I don’t think they ever do multi-warp travel to a destination in the series.

Either way Samus probably couldn’t warp to Extreme Galaxy because there wasn’t any charts for her to find the destination she wanted, usually when they want to warp they have coordinates.

 

[Armorchompy]

Well Samus also visually curves her ship while the aura is active in the Extreme Galaxy travel scene, so she is controlling the ship’s path even in the scenario its speed is boosted. And if its speed was boosted, and the speed booster is a multiplier instead of a flat raise to a specific speed value, then that means Samus is just scaling to a fraction of the ship.

I mean yeah but that'd fall in the usual travel speed stuff, you can change directions you just can't react in that timeframe.

They warp only because their own warp tech was insufficient, and for some reason they couldn’t do a multi-warp journey. And they did use the Leviathan on the way back. Actually I don’t think they ever do multi-warp travel to a destination in the series.

Hyperspace isn't really teleportation, more like accelerating way beyond what speed could be achieved in the 3D universe, so pausing in-between "warps" wouldn't really change things, and Phaaze was so far that even with that method you couldn't cross . Fair enough on the Leviathan, I thought it got destroyed before they went back through it.

Either way Samus probably couldn’t warp to Extreme Galaxy because there wasn’t any charts for her to find the destination she wanted, usually when they want to warp they have coordinates.

Actually, the Alimbic Cluster is uncharted too, and she warps there.

 

[JJSliderman]

I mean yeah but that'd fall in the usual travel speed stuff, you can change directions you just can't react in that timeframe.

The curve Samus made wasn’t a gradual curve, it was a pretty sharp angle, and the ship didn’t appear like it stopped prior to making the turn, so it probably isn’t something Samus was planning on doing well in advance of the turn.

Hyperspace isn't really teleportation, more like accelerating way beyond what speed could be achieved in the 3D universe, so pausing in-between "warps" wouldn't really change things, and Phaaze was so far that even with that method you couldn't cross . Fair enough on the Leviathan, I thought it got destroyed before they went back through it.

If the journey is too far that hyperspace can’t get you there, that still means there are times where hyperspace isn’t the optimal solution the characters take at every point. Plus, they haven’t shown there’s any kind of limit to how many times you can hyperspace, so if the ship can’t get to its destination before needing to stop there’s nothing stopping them from just doing it again, after a recharge.

Actually, the Alimbic Cluster is uncharted too, and she warps there.

Well, she at least had coordinates there to lock onto, the message originated from that area and she locked onto it. Plus Samus just warping around to random locations in the EG doesn’t really solve the issue of needing to map things out, because she wouldn’t know the layout of these elements in relation to everything else.

I think you have a point about the timeframe for the Extreme Galaxy feat, but that seems more related to what they were doing once they were inside the galaxy, as opposed to the distance they traveled to reach the galaxy itself, which is never shown within hyperspace. Plus, it means Samus was still physically flying her ship around the planets in at least Area 1 in order to map out a chart.

 

[Chariot190]

Skimming, Samus 100% scales to her ship.

We see Samus do sharp pivot turns multiple times (in that manga, and even with the fed ship in dread for a MHS feat), in that very race we see Sam do wacky high speed manual inputs even, and Ridley does scale to stuff too (maybe even Gray for shooting down a pirate ship). And yes, even the end of the race is scaling, Armor would be right, to Samus, the ship would be static because she's on another object moving just as fast.
The scaling comes from the beam, she shoots the beam at it, and it covers the gap between ships, and tags it, before the ships can cover their own length and move out of the way, so the arm cannon scales, and she obviously scales to that.

The PROBLEM, though, is that none of this was with warp.
Like, if the established fact is the ship's are MFTL+, only with warping/hyperspace, then, well, if they aren't doing that in moments she'd scale, it wouldn't be MFTL+ scaling, that simple.

Of course, the ships have a non-warp speed too, duh, and Samus 100% scales to that. At the moment, we have a calc for this exact ship at MHS+ (mach 6800), and they state in that same Ch that the lil fuckos enhanced the ship's speed by 30%, so it's actually sub-rel at that time. So Samus scales to sub-rel at least, but the SB do be a thing, treating it as a multiplier because, well it buffed a mhs+ ship? if it was static the boost wouldn't be noticeable because for Samus it just amps her movement to mach 5 at best

But, for argument's sake, not to actually use (we'd just go "higher" for profile purposes due to a lack of a confirmed number), but every game has Samus move about 2x speed with the SB, and we even see in Dread the boost is about that as she runs away from an EMMI, in a cutscene, and she actually manages to get away although was quickly being overtaken (which would be subsonic+ movement btw), what im getting at is, the ship with the SB should only be a few times quicker, a fact that we see actually, as when used, it does overtake them, but it also doesn't instantly win the race or anything. Holy **** im yapping, anyway, yeah Samus' scaling, atm, would just be sub-rel scaling.

 

[Chariot190]

The curve Samus made wasn’t a gradual curve, it was a pretty sharp angle, and the ship didn’t appear like it stopped prior to making the turn, so it probably isn’t something Samus was planning on doing well in advance of the turn.

Btw that defeats your argument, planning and timing a curve well ahead of time is just like, the equivalent of an aim dodge.
Space huge my dude, you could be moving at MFTL+, and by the time the planet comes into view, you'd only need billions of less reactions to react one input.

 

[JJSliderman]

The PROBLEM, though, is that none of this was with warp.
Like, if the established fact is the ship's are MFTL+, only with warping/hyperspace, then, well, if they aren't doing that in moments she'd scale, it wouldn't be MFTL+ scaling, that simple.

Yeah, I’m trying to say that the distance we see on the map in chapter 2 to the galaxy, which is like 7-8% of the galaxy diameter, is smthn Samus’ ship traveled without hyperspace, since the chapter starts with her just outside the galaxy in 3-D space. I can accept the idea that maybe she used hyperspace within the galaxy after going around planets to find Maru, but that’s only after Samus is already in the galaxy and having a star chart mapped out to know the coordinates she wants to go to. There’s no indication she used hyperspace to get to the galaxy itself.

Of course, the ships have a non-warp speed too, duh, and Samus 100% scales to that. At the moment, we have a calc for this exact ship at MHS+ (mach 6800), and they state in that same Ch that the lil fuckos enhanced the ship's speed by 30%, so it's actually sub-rel at that time. So Samus scales to sub-rel at least, but the SB do be a thing, treating it as a multiplier because, well it buffed a mhs+ ship? if it was static the boost wouldn't be noticeable because for Samus it just amps her movement to mach 5 at best

If it was static it would probably be easier for a speed booster to amp a small human being than a giant ship, but if it’s a multiplier then it’s only like, 2-3x as you said, which means Samus would only be 2-3x less than her ship going at full speed to win a race.

~~Samus didn’t use hyperdrive to win the race despite the opponents cheating, is she stupid~~

But, for argument's sake, not to actually use (we'd just go "higher" for profile purposes due to a lack of a confirmed number), but every game has Samus move about 2x speed with the SB, and we even see in Dread the boost is about that as she runs away from an EMMI, in a cutscene, and she actually manages to get away although was quickly being overtaken (which would be subsonic+ movement btw), what im getting at is, the ship with the SB should only be a few times quicker, a fact that we see actually, as when used, it does overtake them, but it also doesn't instantly win the race or anything. Holy **** im yapping, anyway, yeah Samus' scaling, atm, would just be sub-rel scaling.

I guess that’s something, flying between planets just sub-rela that stinks.

I’m saying she “didn’t” plan the curve ahead of time because it’s a sharp curve and her ship doesn’t stop or slow down before making that curve. Maybe she used autopilot? Idk.

 

[Chariot190]

Yeah, I’m trying to say that the distance we see on the map in chapter 2 to the galaxy, which is like 7-8% of the galaxy diameter, is smthn Samus’ ship traveled without hyperspace, since the chapter starts with her just outside the galaxy in 3-D space. I can accept the idea that maybe she used hyperspace within the galaxy after going around planets to find Maru, but that’s only after Samus is already in the galaxy and having a star chart mapped out to know the coordinates she wants to go to. There’s no indication she used hyperspace to get to the galaxy itself.

We already went through that tho, why do i need to repeat myself?

If it was static it would probably be easier for a speed booster to amp a small human being than a giant ship, but if it’s a multiplier then it’s only like, 2-3x as you said, which means Samus would only be 2-3x less than her ship going at full speed to win a race.

~~Samus didn’t use hyperdrive to win the race despite the opponents cheating, is she stupid~~

wtf are you talking about?
That's literally not what means, Samus with SB is mach 5 at best, no way around it, they say as much like 30 times, in what world would that make Sam with SB 2-3x less? Not only is that not what that means, it makes 0 sense.

I guess that’s something, flying between planets just sub-rela that stinks.

I’m saying she “didn’t” plan the curve ahead of time because it’s a sharp curve and her ship doesn’t stop or slow down before making that curve. Maybe she used autopilot? Idk.

Her ship does have autopilot actually, the purple fed ship not having it was a plot point.

 

[JJSliderman]

We already went through that tho, why do i need to repeat myself?

Not really, all that was addressed was Samus using what could be hyperspace after already having been in the galaxy for a decent portion of time, and getting a feel for the geography. Samus traveling to the galaxy is a different event where she was extremely lacking in knowledge on where to hyperspace to.

wtf are you talking about?
That's literally not what means, Samus with SB is mach 5 at best, no way around it, they say as much like 30 times, in what world would that make Sam with SB 2-3x less? Not only is that not what that means, it makes 0 sense.

They say she can go supersonic, they didn’t say that was her cap. Sonic is stated several times as going supersonic or Mach 1 when obviously he goes much faster than that via feats and such.

Her ship does have autopilot actually, the purple fed ship not having it was a plot point.

Fair point, then.

 

[Chariot190]

Not really, all that was addressed was Samus using what could be hyperspace after already having been in the galaxy for a decent portion of time, and getting a feel for the geography. Samus traveling to the galaxy is a different event where she was extremely lacking in knowledge on where to hyperspace to.

Reminder, im not Armor. We have gone over this, do not make me repeat myself.

They say she can go supersonic, they didn’t say that was her cap. Sonic is stated several times as going supersonic or Mach 1 when obviously he goes much faster than that via feats and such.

Uh, no it def is the SB cap for her, you're doing that thing where you just kinda make shit up man, don't.
They say, clear cut "Run at Supersonic speeds". The wording insinuates that when she moves, that's the speed she's going because that's the speed she's running at.
And we know her movement below it isn't THAT fast, either.

And what feats? She doesn't have many good movement speeds that aren't burst speed. The best might legit be the EMMI one.

 

[JJSliderman]

Reminder, im not Armor. We have gone over this, do not make me repeat myself.

All Armor talked about was that the second half of the conversation was after they had collected data on the galaxy, and that hyperdrive may have been used there. There still isn’t really anything pointing to hyperdrive being used to get to the galaxy from what can be discerned, I’m standing by that, so I’d say that distance is still viable as non-hyperdrive travel. Maybe you can argue it’s a slow timeframe, idk.

Uh, no it def is the SB cap for her, you're doing that thing where you just kinda make shit up man, don't.
They say, clear cut "Run at Supersonic speeds". The wording insinuates that when she moves, that's the speed she's going because that's the speed she's running at.
And we know her movement below it isn't THAT fast, either.

Supersonic just means “above sound speed”, FTL, infinite speed, immeasurable speed, they’re all supersonic. Samus’s body already demonstrated it can handle being moved at the speed of her speed booster ship, so there isn’t much saying she can’t be going at a similar speed when she uses the booster.

And what feats? She doesn't have many good movement speeds that aren't burst speed. The best might legit be the EMMI one.

Yeah okay, she doesn’t have a lot of travel speed feats. Her reactions are the notable part. But Samus does have a reason to not go at billions c travel speed, she’s primarily in cramped or confined areas that don’t support her going that fast without banging into things.

 

[Chariot190]

All Armor talked about was that the second half of the conversation was after they had collected data on the galaxy, and that hyperdrive may have been used there. There still isn’t really anything pointing to hyperdrive being used to get to the galaxy from what can be discerned, I’m standing by that, so I’d say that distance is still viable as non-hyperdrive travel. Maybe you can argue it’s a slow timeframe, idk.

Dude, what the **** did i JUST say? im not armor, i dont give a shit what you two talked about, ive already said my stance like 5 posts in, dont waste time.

Supersonic just means “above sound speed”, FTL, infinite speed, immeasurable speed, they’re all supersonic. Samus’s body already demonstrated it can handle being moved at the speed of her speed booster ship, so there isn’t much saying she can’t be going at a similar speed when she uses the booster.

Except if it was FTL, they'd say FTL, if it was Hypersonic, they'd say Hypersonic.
Drop it, right now, we aren't doing this and pretending to be dumb just for big number.

You don't even have an argument anyway, i can literally CALC the mach speed based on the mach cone she generates.

Yeah okay, she doesn’t have a lot of travel speed feats. Her reactions are the notable part.

Ok? Then your argument is wrong.

 

[JJSliderman]

Dude, what the **** did i JUST say? im not armor, i dont give a shit what you two talked about, ive already said my stance like 5 posts in, dont waste time.

Okay fine, I said my stance too. But also, you kind of didn’t say anything about how Samus didn’t visibly use any sort of hyperspace when entering the galaxy, only inside it.

Except if it was FTL, they'd say FTL, if it was Hypersonic, they'd say Hypersonic.
Drop it, right now, we aren't doing this and pretending to be dumb just for big number.

You don't even have an argument anyway, i can literally CALC the mach speed based on the mach cone she generates.
Ok? Then your argument is wrong.

I kind of edited my thing before you posted, sorry. Like if you want to call it a multiplier then, sure. I can accept Samus’ travel speed as not being relative to the ship’s speed and drop her having the speed booster argument as a reason for her scaling. But if you already accept she scales to her ship as far as reacting while piloting it, then I stand by the Extreme Galaxy travel as an MFTL feat for the ship outside of hyperspace, at least as a possibly.

You also mentioned you do think Ceres to Zebes has Ridley flying. Metroid is said to take place in the Milky Way, so it would make sense for Ceres to be referring to the real life Ceres in our asteroid belt, since the colony in game is also located in an asteroid belt. So Ridley either flew across a large chunk of or between solar systems, by this logic.

 

[Chariot190]

Okay fine, I said my stance too. But also, you kind of didn’t say anything about how Samus didn’t visibly use any sort of hyperspace when entering the galaxy, only inside it.

Yeah, i did, actually, go back to read it dude.

I kind of edited my thing before you posted, sorry. Like if you want to call it a multiplier then, sure. I can accept Samus’ travel speed as not being relative to the ship’s speed and drop her having the speed booster argument as a reason for her scaling. But if you already accept she scales to her ship as far as reacting while piloting it, then I stand by the Extreme Galaxy travel as an MFTL feat for the ship outside of hyperspace, at least as a possibly.

Doesnt work, it could be 100% legit, it'd just be an outlier if that's the only time ever that goes against all established lore and showings both before and after.

 

[JJSliderman]

Yeah, i did, actually, go back to read it dude.

Doesnt work, it could be 100% legit, it'd just be an outlier if that's the only time ever that goes against all established lore and showings both before and after.

I skimmed through and, correct me if I’m wrong, the main point you had was that it would be considered an outlier, which is fine. I have my reasons as to why the ship wouldn’t be using hyperdrive to at least enter the galaxy, given that Samus probably wouldn’t be that close in normal space if she was just going to hyperdrive all the way there, but I don’t have anything against the outlier argument. I personally don’t like using that, but if the wiki says so I can respect it. I just disagree.

 

[Chariot190]

I skimmed through and, correct me if I’m wrong, the main point you had was that it would be considered an outlier, which is fine. I have my reasons as to why the ship wouldn’t be using hyperdrive to at least enter the galaxy, given that Samus probably wouldn’t be that close in normal space if she was just going to hyperdrive all the way there, but I don’t have anything against the outlier argument. I personally don’t like using that, but if the wiki says so I can respect it. I just disagree.

Not even talking stat outlier, i mean an actual honest to god fucky, an actual outlier.

Why can the ship suddenly be MFTL+, yet the verse before and after, that to be MFTL you need warp tech? Why is the gunship a million times that of the best Federation ship while using warp, normally? That makes no sense and goes against how this is established to work. Not even a hyperbole, takes the Fed what, 2 hours to get to Zebes?

But not only that, 90% of the scene is in the cockpit, for all we know, they could've warped or maybe already were, we just have no idea, yet even if they didn't, when we see it, it has a huge **** off energy trail, which already makes that non-normal for it. And every time Samus would scale to it, that's absent like in the meteor section, so she wouldn't even scale even if we ignored every problem. THEN, add the fact that thing has auto-pilot.

You want to make Samus, 100000000000x her next best feat, off a vague MFTL feat that even if we ignore how it makes zero sense in-universe, probably dont even scale anyway.
then tack on anti-feats like a QCL being nigh-hitscan.