Space Pirate Miscellaneous Research

Space Pirate Miscellaneous Research


Lair Entrance Statue: These statues are designed by the Zebesian Space Pirates to serve as a visual warning as to the type of horrors that one can expect to encounter upon entering the area that the statues guard. Most of the time, the monsters depicted are not of any real creature on the planet, instead being built solely for the sake of scare tactics. Thankfully, while these entrance statues do appear to be quite frightening to some weaker-willed creatures, they are incapable of doing anything to actually physically harm others and can thus be ignored for the most part. These same statues can be present in more important forms, though, such as the Stone Statues that served as the gateway to Tourian during Samus Aran’s Zero Mission, which consisted of massive head caricatures of Kraid and Ridley that would only open after their associated guardian was defeated.

Pirate Alarm Systems: Though they may live to steal and plunder the resources of every galaxy they enter, the Space Pirates are tight when it comes to security and will gladly set up different systems in order to trip up their adversaries. During Samus Aran’s Zero Mission, the Space Pirates had managed to install two different models within Chozodia and the Space Pirate Mother Ship. Those present in Chozodia had the appearance of eyes moving along walls and fired a thin blue laser light out in a straight line, while those present in the Space Pirate Mother Ship had a simple emitting base and fired a green laser light instead. Regardless of their form, getting caught in the path of either of these beams would activate an alert and send a swarm of Space Pirates to that position to eliminate the intruder, though it is also noted that the units installed in Chozodia also had the power to fire damaging bursts of energy out of the eye structure as soon as the system was activated. A similar system was used by the Phazon Space Pirates on the Pirate Homeworld, using an antenna beacon confined within a thin metal base that could only be activated by either simple infrared laser systems in tight tunnels (which can be seen with X-Ray Visor technology) or by beacons held by Space Pirates, requiring direct observation to actually be utilized. These devices can actually be destroyed with a little bit of firepower, but they need to be destroyed fast to stop their alarm signal, as they are designed to be routed directly to the Space Pirate Command Network (whose control station is primarily located within the Scrapvault of the Pirate Homeworld’s Research Facility) where they will be answered almost immediately by Commando Pirates, the strongest basic troops in the Phazon Space Pirate’s army and thus opponents that standard Federation Marines and other creatures are far outgunned by. Lastly, a security system simply known as the Eye was put in place by the Space Pirates on Zebes after the conclusion of the Phazon Crisis as a safeguard against attack. The Zebesian Space Pirates had found a Morph Ball upgrade in researching the innards of the planet a second time and decided to use it as bait for the inevitable arrival of Samus Aran. The upgrade was purposefully placed in the same nook in Old Brinstar where Samus had first found it, and hooked up near it was a single-lens surveillance unit on the wall. When Samus picked up the upgrade and walked close to the system, the main eye of the unit opened up and scanned her to determine that she was in fact the real thing. Once activated, the system sent out a signal across the planet to inform them of Samus’ arrival, and it was not too long after that Crateria suddenly sprung to life once more and Zebesians spread across the planet in an effort to stop her.

Magmoor Caverns Geothermal Power Plant: This is a fully-functioning geothermal power plant that the Space Pirates set up in Magmoor Caverns of Tallon IV in order to produce viable energy for their equipment and bases on the planet. This place was originally created to act as a temporary source of power as the Space Pirates built their Glacier One facility in Phendrana Drifts, but after they constructed the Central Dynamo in the Phazon Mines, they did not rely on it as much at all despite the fact that it was a promising energy source. The plant itself operates by using immersion pistons to leach power from the magma pools deep beneath the surface of the planet, and while an unstable magma flow could mean that the power grid of Glacier One would have to be removed if the magma levels fluctuated beyond set safety levels, the station was nonetheless proving to be a reliable source of power. Prior to their defeat at the hands of Samus Aran, the Space Pirates in charge of the station recommended to Energy Command that the Phazon Mine’s power grid be hooked to the geothermal power plant and taken off of the Main Dynamo, especially since the Main Dynamo was in need of considerable maintenance and was inherently unstable in its current state.

Astronomical Holographic Projector: A vital tool for the Chief Astrogation Officer responsible for planning interplanetary and interstellar travel for the Space Pirates, this advanced device is used to visually generate a hologram of the FS-176 star system and all of the planets that are a part of it. This hologram is generated from the interaction between a bottom node that can only be fully activated through the use of an Interface Module and a pair of Bomb Slots and a top node that is locked in place by four kinetic drive units at the base of the device (essentially acting as Spinners). The original model has been long abandoned in the Space Pirate research facility Glacier One on Tallon IV, but smaller, more portable units were still fairly common Space Pirate fair up until their dissolution and have proven to be a vital tool for selecting what planets to explore for valuable resources and where there is a likely chance of encountering a cargo ship with materials worth raiding for.

Phazon Crane: This devise sits proudly at the very top of the Main Quarry of the Phazon Mines and served as the primary tool of choice when the Space Pirates first created the Phazon Mines for the sake of biological experimentation and soldier development. The device itself is operated through a complex system of consoles and panels in the main control box, and the arm mechanism is attached to a massive, circular (but flat) weight used as a makeshift wrecking ball. The device itself is heavily encoded and even advanced Visor systems are only able to control its movements so much, but at the very least the arm of the device has a Spider Ball Track on it and the underside of the wrecking unit has a Grapple Point affixed to it, so it possible for individuals with the right technology to make the most of the device even without being to fully control its functions.

Rotation Control Unit: These devices are mainly used to manipulate a central tower that is used as a resource transport for distributing small goods and ore material to the various floors of the Phazon Mines of Tallon IV and gets its name from the fact that it consists of a series of interconnected pillars that rotate freely around a central shaft. Each pillar section possesses a number of magnetic tracks that are used to transport metal containers along the surface of the device, but these same tracks can also be traversed with the power of the Spider Ball. There are three differently-colored tracks that go up to a different floor; the blue track is the shortest and only goes up a single floor, while the red track extends to another floor up and the yellow track extends all the way to the top of the Ore Processing room. Somewhere on each floor, there is a Rotation Control Unit with a Bomb Slot and a three-dimensional hologram of the tower’s current position that can be activated with Morph Ball Bombs to rotate different parts of the pillar into certain positions, making it possible to rotate the pieces of each individual floor in order to create a solid track of a specific color that will lead to a small outstretch of the outer platforms from which the Spider Ball can be disengaged to arrive at a higher floor level, in turn hopefully arriving at another Unit or door that was previously inaccessible. A variation of this device can also be found on the Pirate Homeworld, with the major differences being that the device there is not quite as large as the original model and does not have a holographic diagram or Bomb Slot to activate it with, instead being controlled by a pair of Spinners at the base of the structure.

Phazon Nutrient Vat: These objects have the appearance of large storage tanks with spinning lights on the front of the structure and an inner chamber that is apparently filled with Phazon and other materials. These vats were used by Space Pirates to store Elite Nutrient Mix, the main food resource used in the raising of Elite Pirates during the Space Pirate’s campaign on Tallon IV.

Central Dynamo: This is the device that the Space Pirates used in the Phazon Mines in order to power the facility as well as Glacier One to a minor extent. The Central Dynamo itself is comprised of a concentrated energy source stolen by the Space Pirates from Zebes that is constantly harvested by an advanced siphoning construct to stabilize the violent energy source and supply energy to all parts of the creatures’ facilities, but extended energy drains on the power source had left the device incredibly unstable. The taxing of energy from Phazon processing and security systems had been taking too much energy from the system too quickly, and the electrical stability of the device had exceeded safety tolerances at the time of Samus Aran’s arrival, leaving Security Drones as the only entities that could get near the device safely. The energy that was being produced at the Geothermal Power Plant they set up in Magmoor Caverns was easing the burden a bit, but it was not enough. It was estimated then that further power use at current standards would cause the Central Dynamo to destabilize and fall apart, and it did just that after Samus entered the mesh beneath the device in Morph Ball form and took away the energy source the device had been running on, Power Bombs, before using one to destroy the Central Dynamo completely.

Battle Simulation ‘Samus Aran’: This artificial battle simulation was used by the Tallon IV Space Pirates in order to test the combat efficiency of their Elite Pirates. The simulation itself was based off of previous combat data gathered from Samus’ Zero Mission on Zebes, but while it may have been able to accurately simulate the power and features of her weapon and armor system, it is doubtful that the Space Pirates were able to analyze her mind enough to give the simulation an appropriate AI program. Prior to Samus’ arrival in the Phazon Mines where the Elite Pirates were being kept, it is known that a 74% success rate was achieved with the Elite Pirates that were at the facility, but High Command was not entirely pleased and asked for a better result by the time Project Helix was finished; this correction was never made and was rendered a moot point, however, after Samus managed to destroy all of the remaining Elite Pirates in their mining facility.

Pirate Skiff: The “Shrike” Class Assault Skiff, or Pirate Skiff as simply known by others, is a light attack craft designed primarily for the transportation of troops to an area in a quick and efficient manner. Plans for this particular form of transportation were actually stolen from Galactic Federation lab by Space Pirates years ago and used to build a modified skiff for the sole purpose of troop escort, making it sort of like the ancestor of the Space Pirate ATC and the Space Pirate Assault Skiff. Unfortunately, the Skiff itself has no form of defenses and is only protected by the armor that serves as its base, so it is completely reliant on the troops it is transporting for defense.

Sand Drain: This device is found in the Space Pirate mining facility in Agon Wastes of Aether and the room it is stationed in (Sand Processing) is mainly used to store sand that was extracted from the Wastes area as the Space Pirates were digging and constructing their mining facility. The Sand Drain is usually kept locked unless the room is overflowing with sand, but a Bomb Slot in a nearby observation room can be used to initiate an emergency override of the system, opening the Sand Drain and causing all of the sand to be drained from the room to potentially reveal any items that might otherwise be too large to fit into the grill of the Sand Drain.

Space Pirate Boarding Pod: This aged ship is the only means of transport for expendable Space Pirate troops and thus is not exactly built to be as effective as it should be. Even by Space Pirate standards, these semi-organic ships are crude and dangerous, possessing an aged propulsion drive, a cramped crew-transport module and a nose cone packed with high explosives. The point of the boarding pod is to ram a larger ship and detonate the cone the moment they make contact, hoping to breech the hull of the boarded vessel so the crew can exit out of the busted front portion of their ship and launch a surprise attack on the opposing crew. However, more often than not, something goes terribly wrong and the attack fails spectacularly. In some cases the nose cone explosive may not detonate, leaving the pod to simple bounce off the hull and into deep space; other times, the explosive go off prematurely and expose the crew to the ravages of space. Worse yet, the shielding between the explosives and the crew is usually substandard and not built to resist the effects of such an explosion, making it likely that the explosion may break through the shielding and kill the pirates the moment the hull breach occurs. Not surprisingly, the Space Pirates have come to nickname these vessels “Space Coffins”, and anyone that is packed into one will probably never see the light of day again.

Pirate Proximity Mine: The Pirate Proximity Mine is a simple explosive device used by Space Pirates as a cheap substitute for an actual trooper or even a drone, and it is generally rare to see them in use as a result of their simplistic nature. The Proximity Mine possesses a motion tracker that reads vibrations in the ground nearby to detect the presence of another creature; the moment that their target gets relatively close to them, the explosives inside are instantly detonated to create a substantial explosion capable of inflicting considerable damage. However, the mine can be set off early by shooting it from afar, making it less of a threat than most of the other weapons available to the Space Pirates.

Jamming Beacon: These devices are normally used by Space Pirates in order to interfere with the communication signals of other entities when in their territory. With a stout armored body and a large, crescent-shaped energy array at the top, these machine can block off any and all communication between an individual and their Gunship, thus making it impossible to use weapons installed in said Gunship to attack others. While they can certainly be annoying, they also possess a convenient hand-held emergency shut-off lever on the front that can be wrenched down using something like the Grapple Lasso, enabling communication once more; this will only work for a short period of time, however, as the lever is on a winch system and will eventually fall back into position if the device is not destroyed in quick fashion.

Leviathan Shield: This energy shield is designed to serve as the ultimate defensive shield and is so powerful that it can effectively render anything under its protective care immune to damage from conventional weaponry. The structure consists of a large blue energy shield with pulsating nodes of various blue shades and attached to the shield are a pair of transmitters that receive power from Leviathan Shield Generators. As long as at least one Leviathan Shield Generator is still working, it possible to keep the shield up indefinitely, though the removal of both power sources will cause the shield to destabilize and dissipate. It is lastly noted that, while most forms of weaponry are incapable of inflicting much in the way of damage on the shield, it is not completely invincible and can be destroyed with devastating energetic forces such as those produced by a Theronian Bomb.

Leviathan Shield Generators: These devices act as the main power source of a Leviathan Shield and are thus the only objects that can normally be targeted in order to remove the shield. These massive devices have a bulbous shape to the main body and a long, stiff antenna at the top that is used to send power to the Leviathan Seed through a pair of energy transmitters attached to the shield itself. These devices are powered by Fuel Gel and extremely well-armored and can provide enough power to keep the shield active even if there is only one powering it (two are usually preferred just in case a malfunction in one of the generators renders it inoperable). The only major weakness that these devices have is the fact that their armored bodies contain large amounts of Maldium, leaving them vulnerable to the massive destructive power of a Ship Missile barrage.

Phazite Switch Shielding: In short, this device consists of a large Phazite panel that is used to protect a number of security nodes that must be struck in order to override the lock mechanism attached to a door or device and activate it or allow passage into a new area. Due to the thickness of the Phazite shielding, it is impossible to target the inner security nodes with most forms of weaponry, but the Nova Beam is capable penetrating right through the material and works well when the nodes behind can be targeted using X-Ray Visor technology.

Bliptrans: This is a special-use message delivery system employed by the Phazon Space Pirates to send encoded visual and literary information to other creatures in an extremely short period of time. It is still unknown just how these messages are sent and are able to arrive at their destination so quickly, but it is theorized that they may be delivered with a warp drive derived from the Leviathan Battleship to transport the data, though the physical specifications needed to even make that happen are still a mystery to the Galactic Federation.

Lift Hub Mechanism: This simple lock system is used to block passage from the 2nd floor of the Command Center’s Lift Hub to the Transit Station 3-B, which connects with the Research Facility. The device consists of a central gate that contains a Bomb Slot on one side but not the other. When an object or energy source is plugged into this structure and used to energize it, the central portion of the gate and the outer portion will begin rotating in different directions and move through several rotation cycles before finally settling down back in position, with the side with the Bomb Slot having switched places. This mechanism might not be anywhere near as complex as some of the other security systems put in place in the Command Center, but it nonetheless serves it purpose in trying to ensure that movement from one part of the Pirate Homeworld to another is not so easy to accomplish.

Space Pirate Defense System: This system is designed to act as the primary form of defense for the Pirate Homeworld and is the only reason why the Galactic Federation was not able to launch a full-scale assault on the planet when initially arriving there. The Defense System itself is comprised of a number of flat, crystal-like shield units on fibrous bases that float off of the ground near places extreme importance to the Space Pirates, projecting a large, orange energy shield that acts to reflect energy and concussive weapon systems. Though imposing on their own, these objects are unable to actually defend themselves and are thus usually supported by numerous anti-aircraft turrets; if the shields are shut off, it will subsequently leave their supporting cannons vulnerable to attack, and once they are removed, there is very little that can be done to stop a foreign invasion aside from combating it with ground troops.

Command Vault Mechanism: This device is used as a security safety lock for the X-Ray technology that the Phazon Space Pirates are known for using on their control panels and other devices. While the background of this room displays a containing and transport chamber for massive batches of Phazon ore, the actual item of importance is the locking system here and is basically a simple energy-routing system that requires a specific amount of energy in order to fully activate. This device is armed with a series of five yellow power nodes, and each time a node is hit, it will release a small amount of energy into the surrounding scaffolding. Only after hitting all five targets at the same time with a Seeker Missile will enough energy be delivered into the system to change the position of the tracks in the other room, both allowing Phazon canisters to run through the Command Vault’s main room but also deactivate the locking mechanism in place and allow access to the X-Ray Visor stored there.

Security Air Lock Mechanism: This lock system was put in place by the Space Pirates in the Security Air Lock of the Pirate Homeworld to act as an immovable barrier to all those that lack X-Ray Visor technology. In a sense, this armored gate contains a series of energy nodes on the outside that must be shot in succession in order to manually detach the internal drill locks holding the shield firmly in place. However, the energy nodes will only activate when struck while the internal signal core for each node is active, and the only way to clearly see which node is active at any given moment is by observing them with the X-Ray Visor, under which the correct node to shoot will be highlighted internally by a surge of energy through its associated internal signal core. Once all five internal locks have been disengaged, a Morph Ball hologram will appear on a small platform on the lip of the main platform the lock rests on, which will cause the entire lock mechanism to spin around and allow passage to the other side of the Security Air Lock.

Ore: This is just a general term used by the Phazon Space Pirates to describe the unique Phazon ore that existed on their home planet prior to the destruction of Phaaze. The rock that the Phazon chose to bind to is generally quite sturdy and resistant against the effects of physical attack, but the Space Pirates adapted to this by constructing massive drills capable of rapidly grinding straight through the material with tremendous force, leaving the ore glowing a bright whitish-orange color from the intense friction for a short while before reverting to its normal dark-brown and Blue Phazon-streaked form.

Mining Drill: This is a generic name for a special heavy-duty drill the Phazon Space Pirates used for digging down into the crust of their homeworld in search of Phazon ore. These drills come in many different shapes and sizes and can be made part of some considerably complex mechanisms in the right cases, the best example being the multi-purpose drill located in the Phazon Quarry of the homeworld’s Mining Site as it possessed a small drill for fine cutting and a larger drill bit on the opposite side for cutting thorough mass deposits of ore. A second drill was present in Drill Shaft 2, but this one was under repairs as it had gotten itself stuck in a particularly rugged deposit and was only eventually freed and allowed to return to a stable position after Samus used the Space Pirates’ stolen Nova Beam to fire at the drill’s jammed internal drive mechanism, which was only protected from the outside by a circular plate of Phazite.

Space Pirate Energy Cell: These energy storage devices were originally created and used by the Space Pirates stationed in the Bermuda System. While they might mimic some design elements of the Energy Cells used by the Galactic Federation, these portable storage units contain far too much energy for any conventional generator system to handle; as such, they are only of use in the powering of very specific objects that are able to handle the immense energy contained within them, primarily the Doomseye that these Space Pirates were nearly able to use to destroy the Galactic Federation.

Architects: These circular, metallic orbs serve as vessels for Space Pirate research data and are generally used when information needs to be stored separate from a mainframe in the case of an emergency shutdown or cyberattack. While these devices can generally be decoded and translated without serious trouble, getting ahold of them is not easy, as they are equipped with a handy safeguard that triggers them to animate on their own when initially coming into contact with non-Space-Pirate-sanctioned technology. In this state, the outer metal panels of the devices will extend, revealing the data core in the center, and the Architects will begin to roam around the corridors of the facility they are contained within, fleeing quite rapidly from anyone that dares to try and catch them. While they are too fast for normal humans or Federation Force Mechs to easily catch in this state, revealing the inner core also reveals the safeguard’s command circuitry to weapon fire; sustained fire will damage this sensitive inner circuit and temporarily disable the device’s safeguard mechanism, allowing for its attacker to finally pick it up and deactivate the safeguard manually before it has the chance to restore the damaged circuits.

Space Pirate Tram: This device was primarily used by the Space Pirates of the Bermuda System on the planet Excelcion as a vehicle for both mining and transporting minerals hidden deep below the surface of the planet at an abandoned Galactic Federation mine. While the tram may only require a short energy charge in order to operate and is armored to some degree, it is far from invincible and can be destroyed if enough damage is dealt to it; as a caution to this, the Gatling Plasma Cannon attached to the device used for mining is designed to be used as a makeshift weapon in threatening circumstances capable of dealing rapid, devastating damage to anything that dares to get in its line of fire.

Space Pirate Transfer Device: These devices were used by the Space Pirates of the Bermuda System in order to generate and transmit the energy needed to power the Doomseye, a weapon more than capable of destroying entire fleets of ships in a single strike. These devices were built after the Space Pirates discovered that the unique crystals that grow on some parts of the planet Excelcion react violently when mixed with the liquid resource that dwells in large caverns beneath the planet’s surface, triggering the release of an incredible amount of energy, more than enough to power entire fleets of ships with ease. These bulky devices serve the task of housing and mixing these materials together before transmitting the energy generated towards the Doomseye, not only giving it enough power to run its weapon systems but, more importantly, providing the massive amount of energy needed to power the stealth cloak that keeps the entire structure completely hidden from view on any radar system. The sides of these devices are well-armored and effectively immune to direct damage from conventional weaponry, but they are dotted with a quartet of safety release valves that allow excess energy not transmitted to be released in the case of an emergency overload. These valves move up and down along a small conveyor belt and are not easy to make contact with, as they can move in and out of metallic sheaths that protect them from harm, and a large, semi-cylindrical metal ring moves up and down as well in order to block them for defensive purposes. This defense is present because there is a fatal flaw in the design of the transfer device: If all of the safety ports are destroyed, it can cause an energy surge that can burn out the regulatory circuits of the device and render it incapable of keeping the resources stored in it from mixing at all at once, resulting in a cataclysmic explosion that can easily destroy the device from the inside out and render it completely inoperable and irreparable. The Space Pirates employed three of these devices to power the Doomseye during the Bermuda Crisis, but the Federation Force was thankfully able to disable all three of them, in turn uncovering the location of the Doomseye.

Golden Statues: This is the term used to describe the gold statues that were placed above the entrance to the new Tourian during Samus’ final adventure on Zebes. Each of the four statues situated above the elevator possessed a likeness of one of the four major generals under the command of Mother Brain, namely Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon and Ridley. Each of these statues was connected to a biomarker placed in the bodies of these generals that, when rendered inactive by their death, would release the energy cores powering this defensive gateway from each statue, breaking the jewel-encrusted eyepieces of the statues and causing them to revert to a darker color. It was only in disabling all four of these statues that Samus was able to open the pathway to the new Tourian and confront Mother Brain personally for the last time.