Samus
Samus Aran is the protagonist from the Metroid video game series. When she was three years old, Space Pirates attacked her homeworld, killing everyone except for her. She was left for dead, but the Chozo, an ancient, bird-like species of aliens, rescued her, raised her, and trained her in the art of combat, giving her a suit of powered armor to fight the Space Pirates. After reaching adulthood, Samus went to work for the Galactic Federation for a while, and then left to work on her own as a bounty hunter.
She soon came into conflict with the Space Pirates again; they had seized her adoptive homeworld and were attempting to weaponize dangerous creatures known as Metroids, hovering jellyfish-things that drained life-force. She fought them, and came face-to-face with Ridley, the space dragon who had killed Samus' mother right before her eyes. She defeated him as well, and then destroyed the Mother Brain, and triggered the Space Pirate base's self-destruct sequence.
The Space Pirates tried several more times to weaponize the Metroids, using a substance called Phazon to mutate them (and mutate themselves, for that matter); Samus defeated them time and again, even coming face-to-face with an evil, Phazon-born twin of herself. She also squared off against Ridley time and again, as the Pirates resurrected him in increasingly-creative ways.
After making a costly but devastating assault on the Space Pirate Homeworld, the Galactic Federation decided that it would be cheapest to send Samus to destroy the Metroids once and for all, rather than having to pay her to deal with each new iteration of the Metroid threat. Even this plan was of limited success, because no matter how many Metroids Samus killed, there always seemed to be more (and this also seemed to be true of the Space Pirates themselves); even when the galactic population had been reduced to one Metroid, the Pirates managed to steal it, but finally, they were exterminated once and for all.
Unfortunately, the Metroids were needed to keep a population of dangerous, adaptible, mind-controlling parasites in check, and without the Metroids, the parasites were able to reproduce without limit. Samus dealt with them, too, but given the number of times that the Metroids and Space Pirates have been "exterminated without a trace," the so-called "X parasites" won't be gone for long, especially as the Federation has already tried cloning Metroids and Space Pirates before. Samus put a stop to those efforts as well, but she earned the enmity of the Federation in the process; at the moment, it seems that she's on the run. At this point, all we can do is wait for her next mission.
Metroid: Other M
 Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it. |
The most recently-released Metroid game, in which the Galactic Federation decides that cloning Space Pirates would be a good idea. Currently regarded as the Wardex of the Metroid series because it reduces Samus to a much more passive character in order to justify her accepting limitations on her arsenal. Especially bothersome because the same gameplay could have been justified in a more satisfying manner.
In Warhammer 40,000
There are reports from planet 6319 of the Great Crusade of a minor warp-entity known as Samus. It was the local equivalent of 'the devil' in legends, capable of possessing people, and jamming private or encrypted vox-channels with a repeated whisper or chant of: "Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw on your bones. Look out! Samus is here." Warmaster Horus ordered the warp-entity to be destroyed, and ordered the supression of any and all records of Space Marines succumbing to the influence of the Samus entity. Horus is a traitor to mankind, and any reports of the Adeptus Astartes succumbing to Chaos are clearly lies and propaganda. --Commissar Rosethorn
The hunter Samus Aran is indoctrinated by the Chozo and (as of Metroid Fusion) part-Metroid, which does not endear her to Imperial authorities, but her power suit has massive pauldrons that demand respect, and would put a Space Marine to shame. For this reason, not to mention her status as a one-woman Exterminatus, Samus is sometimes portrayed as a Primarch of a legion of Female Space Marines. It's said that the Space Pirate xenos describe the hunter Samus Aran to each other with the same chant as the aforementioned warp-entity: "Samus; it means the end and the death. Samus is all around you. Samus will gnaw on your bones..."
+++ Abstractus on dossier for rogue hunter Aran, Samus +++
She has passed purity examinations; although raised by xenos and exhibiting minor pskyer talent, she shows no sign of Chaos corruption and her psionic ability scores an omicron-minus on the Assignment scale -- almost negligible, and focused solely on use of Chozo xenotech. Inside the xenotech armor, her warp signature is indistinguishable to any member of the Adeptus Astartes; it is recommended she wear the armor AT ALL TIMES, in passive mode when not deployed on missions. Furthermore, she should be forcibly hibernated during interstellar travel. Warp influence is still a concern, especially since we have yet to determine the method of the xenotech "morph ball" operation, and because she has had extensive contact with corrupting substances in the past; while deployed on a mission, Aran should check in at regular frequency for examination of corruption at designated 'save' points; if she fails to do so, abort the mission immediately and issue an extermination order for Aran.
+++ Thought of the day: The best place for a spy to hide is as a neighbour, friend or lover. +++