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The Culture and Goals of the Space Pirates
The Space Pirates are really only pirates in name. They do raid ships in space, but they're hardly the kind of pirates you'd see in Pirates of the Caribbean or Peter Pan. They don't plunder for booty and make treasure maps. If anything, they're more like a marauding network of totalitarian imperialists.
Who are the Space Pirates?
Unlike real-life pirates, the Space Pirates are all part of a unified galactic organization - despite this, they are no single race or nation, but work in different groups among the systems. They take over entire planets, enslaving the races thereon and forcibly recruiting them into their ranks. The so-called Pirate Homeworld (a.k.a. Urtraghus) found in Corruption is referred to as merely "one of the Space Pirate homeworlds" in the Prime Trilogy artbook. This explains why the Space Pirates look so different from game to game - they are often different races entirely that have been enslaved or recruited by the same empire, such as the Zebesian soldiers found in Super Metroid.
Speaking of the Zebesians, did you know that the so-called "Zebesian" Space Pirates are not actually natives of Zebes? They began calling themselves that after conquering and colonizing the planet, similar to how most Americans are actually descended from places other than America themselves. This helps us understand the imperialistic nature of the Space Pirate organization.
This issue also explains why Ridley, a creature of a seemingly unrelated race to any of the Pirate races we've seen so far, is given such a high position of power. But that leads us to the next question.
Who leads the Space Pirates?
Well, their leadership tends to shift around a lot, actually, so let's just look at it chronologically.
Ridley has been one of the Space Pirates' main enforcers for years, at least since Samus was a child. But for most of the series, Mother Brain is the true leader of the bunch. If the manga is considered canon, Mother Brain is a rebel Chozo creation who helped the Space Pirates invade Zebes and installed herself as their leader with her psychic and technological might. Ridley is Mother Brain's subordinate while retaining a high position of power in the organization - Kraid is also present as a powerful Space Pirate enforcer, but his true role is unknown. After her defeat in the first Metroid/Zero Mission, it appears as though Ridley takes up command as Meta Ridley while Mother Brain recovers. Kraid's status for this time is unknown. There is a group called "High Command" referred to in scan logs in Prime, but it's unknown where they fit into the hierarchy.
After Meta Ridley's defeat in Prime, however, there is a power gap left in the organization. Dark Samus takes advantage of this in Corruption, establishing herself as the new leader and infecting the Urtraghan Pirates with Phazon. Meta Ridley comes back as Omega Ridley, becoming Dark Samus' subordinate - willingly or not.
Once Dark Samus and the Phazon are gone, Mother Brain takes control again. Then she, along with Ridley and all the other Pirates on Zebes, are killed in the events of Super. Interestingly, the Pirates aren't mentioned a whole lot after Super, since Other M and Fusion both deal more with the Galactic Federation's dark side and their many experiments gone wrong on the Bottle Ship and the BSL Station. What the Space Pirates are up to at the current point in the series is unknown - their main leadership, Mother Brain, Ridley, and Kraid, are all gone for what seems like the last time, but it's unlikely that every single Space Pirate in the galaxy was on Zebes when it exploded.
What is the Space Pirates' goal?
The goal of the Space Pirate empire is left fairly vague, but they seem to have an obsession with technology and military might. They are known for seeking out progress despite the dangers it may present, often to their own detriment. The extent of how far they will go for more power can be seen throughout the Prime Trilogy, as they continuously mutilate themselves with the grotesque Phazon mutations and willingly succumb to Dark Samus' influence in order to tap into Phazon more fully. Thus it is fitting that they are literally led by technology, by Mother Brain.
In Prime, we see that the Space Pirates are utterly incompatible with older technologies such as that of the Chozo, being unable to break the lock on the Impact Crater due to their unwillingness to play by its rules and find the Chozo Artifacts. They desecrate the Chozo ruins, on Tallon IV or wherever they may go, like conquering fascists. Ridley ignores the concept of death by becoming Meta Ridley, growing stronger than ever at the time in his bid to continue his hunt for power and get revenge on Samus. Even when Samus is about to unlock the crater, Meta Ridley swoops in and destroys the totems, leaving both of them unable to access it. In retaliation, the temple's Chozo statues deal the finishing blow and defeat Meta Ridley while Chozo Ghosts unlock the crater for Samus, showing that Ridley's blatant disregard and even hatred for the past was his own downfall. They are all too obsessed with the future.
But what are the Space Pirates actually trying to do? Evidence points towards total galactic domination. They clash with Samus and the Galactic Federation at every turn, and otherwise they wander the galaxy looking for worlds to exploit and destroy. While working for Mother Brain, they assisted her in the development of Metroids into potent bioweapons. While working for Dark Samus, they assisted her in her goal of galactic Phazon corruption. However, what kind of ideology or culture they are attempting to force on the galaxy and why is left unclear.
It's possible that they don't even have a united goal, and that their culture is simply built upon bullying and taking advantage of others. This could especially be the case during games such as Echoes, when they don't seem to have a leader at all, besides their own greed and desire to harness Phazon.
Despite the seeming lack of direction, the Space Pirates are very strict with one another and uphold a moral code. One can find lore scans of the punishments they have for disobedience, from docking pay to cutting food rations to outright execution. If a Pirate is found to be too cowardly, they are shot in the back for an ironic death. If a Pirate Aerotrooper is about to fall in battle, they will kamikaze dive-bomb their target, favoring death over dishonor. The Cargo Drones on Urtraghus even possess the brains and spinal cords of Pirates, likely placed there as a punishment for especially unruly soldiers. So they're not just a bunch of punks causing trouble - they care about their conquest.
Conclusion
All of this points towards a society that is about power - military power, mental power, technological power, you name it. They are hungry for power. They'll kill you and they'll even kill each other so they can have more power. Shallow as it might seem, that's what they're after. And in some ways, isn't that understandable? Who doesn't want power? Metroid games are all about getting more powerful. Maybe the Space Pirates are a dark reflection of Samus. While Samus respects her past with the Chozo and works on equal footing with the Galactic Federation to achieve peace, the Space Pirates are ravenously biting at the heels of progress, never slowing down to smell the flowers but rather trampling all over them in a vicious stampede.
Metroid and Motherhood
When Metroid: Other M first came out, I was confused by the game's massive emphasis on the theme of motherhood. To teenage me, Metroid was about exploring planets and fighting aliens; it's no surprise I ignored something that I had no way of relating to at the time. But as I've grown older, I've realized that motherhood really is a frequent theme in the series. Let's talk about some examples.Motherhood was only briefly touched upon in the first Metroid, where the leader of the Space Pirates that Samus faced was none other than Mother Brain. When you think about it, that's a bit of an odd idea: a matriarch leading pirates? In the real world, pirates would even consider a woman bad luck to take aboard on the seas, though that superstition seemed to only extend to beautiful young women who may distract the crew (ironic then that the Pirates are defeated by Samus, a beautiful woman in disguise; like if Mary Read were a privateer instead). Nevertheless, motherhood remained in the background.
The theme first truly reared its head in Metroid II: Return of Samus, where Samus must face the (this time literal) mother of the Metroids on SR388. Afterwards, she forms her bond with the last Baby Metroid. At first it was out of sympathy for the poor thing, Samus herself being the last survivor of her own home's destruction as well, but she quickly establishes a mother-child dynamic with the larva anyways (in Samus Returns she even gets to go Mama Bear on Ridley when he tries to take her newfound baby).
In Super Metroid, Samus' entire mission is about saving the Baby Metroid from the Space Pirates, once Ridley actually succeeds. Along the way she encounters several other mothers as well, such as the benevolent Tatori family and the malevolent Draygon family. Both of these creatures show aspects of motherhood: Tatori is normally docile but fiercely protective of its young, attacking Samus if she touches them. Meanwhile, Draygon fights Samus with its young mostly out of the way - only upon her defeat do they appear, carefully dragging her corpse into the ground and away from her murderer (i.e. Samus).
Then of course, Samus's bond with the Baby Metroid is tested by the harsh environment of Zebes, where it has grown to an enormous size and attacks her at first, hardened by its experience alone in the Space Pirate catacombs. Once the two make up and face Mother Brain together, the Baby finally sacrifices itself to save Samus, and she uses its final gift to her to annihilate Mother Brain and escape.
We can briefly touch on the Prime series while we're at it. The theme of motherhood is again quite subdued here, although Samus still fights matriarchal bosses such as the Parasite Queen and the mama Sheegoth. The Metroid Prime is definitely evocative of Mother Brain (its head has vaguely feminine facial features, similar to Mother Brain's original sprite on the NES), and once it becomes Dark Samus she has some subtle motherly actions as well, such as working to free Metroids on Aether and acting as some sort of abusive matriarch for the corrupted Space Pirates.
And Other M... well, it's pretty clear. Right there in the title. The conspirators of the Galactic Federation, unable to control Metroids with their cold and amorphous organization, resorted to creating an artificial mother via MB. However, motherhood is not something so easily simulated - it is something real, and the natural bond between MB and the Metroids caused her to gain her own sense of pride and even turn on her creators (not helped by the fact that her own motherly figure, Madeline Bergman, was pressured into abandoning her).
Interestingly, Fusion doesn't do much with the theme of motherhood at all. The X-Parasites are possibly some sort of dark foil to motherhood, showing how cruel the world could be without familial love and bonds.
Metroids are commonly referred to as "parasites" throughout the series (despite not exactly fitting the definition of a parasite). Parasites are unique because they sap energy from another being, they take without giving. They are liabilities by definition. Raising children can also feel this way sometimes, especially with small children and infants - they take and take and take from their parents, without giving back. Metroids are like a cynical look at what a child is: a draining parasite that is paradoxically incredibly valuable. But why are they so valuable? Why do mothers still have kids? Why do so many people want to control the Metroids?
There are two possible answers here. The first is power, the capacity to hold dominion over others. The Space Pirates and the Galactic Federation want to make use of the Metroids, to domineer these dangerous parasites and make them tools in their agendas. However, the second option is love. Why did Samus spare the Baby? Why do the Metroids serve their Queen Metroid? It's love. This love is what gives the Metroids the potential to be more than parasites, what makes them loyal allies rather than weapons. This is what the Galactic Federation was trying to replicate with MB - a relationship not built upon power, but rather love.
What I find the most interesting is the implication that love may be how Mother Brain controls the Metroids as well. While never explicitly stated, her interactions with them in the manga and the implications of MB's existence in Other M infer that she also loved the Metroids in some way.
There are always individuals who want to control the Metroids. The Metroids are an artificial species created by a benevolent civilization - a mother - that no longer exists. They drove their own "mother" away, and were cursed to a life of being hunted and experimented on for all time. Many groups and inidividuals see the potential of the Metroids and wish to supply them with a new mother, but the results are always mixed. In a way, it's a meta commentary on the Metroid series itself - the creator of Metroid, Gunpei Yokoi, passed away in 1997, leaving the series without a mother of its own. Since then it has passed hands throughout Nintendo and Retro Studios without seeing the same success enjoyed by franchises such as Mario and Zelda.
Am I saying that Yokoi-san would have saved Metroid from such a fate? No. I just feel that it is worth pointing out the parallels between the Metroids and the Metroids. Hopefully both will be able to someday find a comfortable place with mothers that can help them to truly achieve their potential as more than parasites.
Metroid and Discovering Good in Chaos
It's a common trend in Metroid games for Samus and the player to assume something is a one-note monster, only for it to later reveal a higher level of compassion and morality. Here are some examples from each game:- In Samus Returns, the player is led to believe the Metroid species are awful parasites that must be exterminated, and that Samus is a brutal warrior who will carry out this genocide. Samus spares the Baby Metroid at the end, as both she and the Baby subvert this narrative with compassion.
- In Super, the player is led to believe that the Baby Metroid is nothing more than a helpless, unintelligent infant. This is subverted when the giant Baby attacks Samus only to spare her, and finalized when the Baby sacrifices itself to save Samus from Mother Brain.
- In Fusion, the player is led to believe that the X are remorseless monsters, and that ADAM is a heartless computer. However, ADAM's soul is awoken with compassion towards Samus, while the SA-X exhibits some sort of cooperation to defeat the Omega Metroid (though this is left unclear).
- In Prime, the player is led to believe the Chozo Ghosts are territorial demons and total nuisances. This is subverted when they reappear to kindly grant Samus access to the Impact Crater.
- This gets a dark twist in Dread, as Samus thinks ADAM has her best interests in mind only for him to actually be the ruthless Raven Beak in disguise. Then the pattern continues as the Quiet Robe-X clearly intentionally saves Samus from her Metroid powers.
There are, of course, exceptions to this theme. Forces such as the Space Pirates, the Ing, Phazon, and the Mawkin are depicted as totally evil. But still.
