Headscratchers / Metroid: Zero Mission

• Space Pirates never drop energy. Why is that?
  • Because that'd be too easy.
  • There are no energy drops in-canon: Like the lethal falls described above, Samus never actually loses enough damage to need a recharge from anything but her suit.
  • There might not be energy drops anymore, but they were intended according to the first game's manual. On the other hand, that same manual also said the space pirates feared Samus's suit for this very reason so maybe they did something to ensure she would not be getting any pickups from them? (The floating electro balls, eye scanners and Iron Ted still leave pickups for some reason).
• How could Samus use energy tanks without the suit?
  • When you see the back of the Zero Suit, aren't there three pink spheres? Maybe those are energy tanks, considering that a full one is bright pink/magenta in your energy indicator.
• Samus escapes the exploding Space Pirate Mothership in what seems to be a Space Pirate Vessel. How did Samus get back to Federation-controlled space to get a new ship in time for Prime 1/Metroid II without her being shot/bombed to Hell by the Federation military after appearing on their radar? And broadcasting something to the effect of "I'm a friend, don't shoot." is exactly what an enemy trying to pull an I Surrender, Suckers attack would broadcast.
  • She wouldn't say "I'm a friend", she'd say "I'm Samus Aran." And no enemy is dumb enough to pretend to be SAMUS FUCKING ARAN.
• Zero Mission is "what really happened" in canon, while they kept the original NES Metroid merely as her "official incident report". While I can understand Samus not wanting to discuss more personal matters regarding her past on the planet with the Chozo, how does the rest of it work? "There were no rank-and-file Space Pirates, just random creatures. Kraid was barely my height and Ridley was such a non-threat it was like fighting a mentally handicapped kangaroo. Mother Brain was barely anything. Now pay me."
  • If she isn’t contractually obliged to note the size/threat level of the bosses she fought, then she doesn’t. She completed the mission as stated (“destroy Space Pirate leadership”) and supplementary detail wasn’t relevant. After all, her presumption would have been that she killed all of them, not yet realising about their Joker Immunity. If the NES Metroid as we play it was like a “training simulation” for future bounty hunters based on the report (or something) then the designers of the simulation spitballed what those aspects must have been like. Maybe there were Space Pirates in both depictions, but so few were mentioned in the incident report that they skimped on that detail. Maybe they were maning some of the turrets which appear at first glance to be automated, in defence of the Mother Brain. If you’re also concerned about how she failed to mention the additional, gigantic Space Pirate installation, well maybe she filled out the report fast in part to be free to go and wage war against more Space Pirates to try and stop their criminal activities, as she does in the Prime series.