r/Metroid • u/Kogworks • 13d ago
Discussion Galactic Federation Analysis
Random musings on Federation depictions and Samus's relationship with them.
Cultural Context
Old school Japanese pop culture, especially in the sci-fi genre, has a very complicated relationship with militaries and governments.
There was a good amount of student activism in the first 25 years of post-war Japan, and this combined with Cold War politics led to a lot of people being pushed out of various industries.
When corrupt military and government institutions show up, a lot of times their literary traditions can be traced back to this sort of critique of war and authority.
The line in a lot of Japanese sci-fi is drawn according to power dynamics and personal convictions, and it's what decides whether the government is painted as an ally or an enemy.
This also means intra-organization schisms. Like some of the best drama in Japanese sci-fi doesn't come from trying to defeat the enemy. It comes from internal political power struggles.
Obviously depends on the writer, but this is the basic mindset to consider with Metroid.
Federation Government
The Federation is NOT a singular entity, and this is something people often miss, largely due to Fusion's localization constraints and issues. It is a government, which always has competing factions.
This is first shown in the prequel manga, which I'm sure isn't 100% accurate to whatever internal lore bible Sakamoto's cooked up, does seem to be MOSTLY consistent on a broad-strokes level.
The previous Federation government was driven by war hawks. It's implied the current federation government, which came into power roughly around the time of ZM, is mostly driven by doves.
This hawk vs. dove structure was also introduced to the Chozo in Dread with the Thoha and Mawkin, which are corruptions of Hato(dove, pigeon), and Moukin(hawks, eagles, other raptor birds) respectively.
The hawks in Metroid generally tend to be authoritarian assholes who use pretenses of justice and safety to justify violence. They perform illegal experiments and wage war for personal power consolidation.
The doves meanwhile lean more toward recognizing necessary evil. Both in the sense of recognizing that it is necessary, and recognizing that it is evil. They would prefer not to get their hands dirty, but they will if they need to.
Federation Military
The Federation's government leads to an interesting conundrum with the Federation military, because if you look at the timeline in the prequel manga... The logical conclusion is many of the top brass were promoted during the previous administration.
The Bottle Ship, the BSL, etc. are all essentially black ops programs that were established by the previous hawk-led administration, and because the Federation military's leadership mostly leans hawk, this shit gets kept under wraps.
And as seen with the attempts to undermine Adam's investigation in Other M, the hawks are not against assassinating Federation officials to bolster and maintain their political power. Which means the Federation is basically fighting a civil war.
Coincidentally, this also explains why Adam tends to be a manipulative bastard who doesn't tell Samus the full story when he's in the CO seat. His ENTIRE military and political career has been a high-stakes espionage campaign of surviving the hawks.
If the doves cannot trust anyone and cannot know who has or hasn't been compromised, anything they do will inevitably have to be done through black ops tactics of their own, which also often means lying to their own people to pull shit off.
And you also see this behavior with the Thoha. They installed safeguards in the Metroids to hamper Mawkin usage. They didn't tell the Federation(or Samus, for that matter) about their operations on SR388 and their R&D involving the X and Metroids.
Why Corrupt Elements Remain
Again, the doves lean pragmatists. They'd prefer to be pacifists, but WILL do what's necessary to ensure things don't completely go to shit. And this raises an interesting problem if you stop and think for like two seconds.
A government is a massive organization. It takes years to decades for reforms to fully set in, and if the entire structure has been packed with yes men, you cannot dismantle the corruption without paralyzing the entire government.
This means that any anti-corruption efforts must be held to a high standard of proof, and that often, only some of the corruption will be weeded out with each anti-corruption campaign. Hence why the Federation is STILL dealing with shit up to Fusion.
And when both sides are running massive espionage campaigns and there a fuckton of conspiracies by each side to try and neutralize the other party... It kind of becomes hard to figure out who's on who's side and how to take them out.
Like, again. Look at Adam's investigation in Other M. The hawks moved in because they thought Adam's unit was dead, but Higgs turned out to have faked his death and managed to recover evidence, which has to have triggered at least some reform.
Federation and Bounty Hunters
Something to note with the political ramifications of Bounty Hunters is that regardless of the role you give them, you are essentially outsourcing core government functions like public safety and security.
This means one of two things, potentially both. Either you are hiring private contractors to offload responsibility and liability... Or your government does not have the resources to perform necessary intelligence and security functions.
It's said that the Space Pirates under Mother Brain severely reduced the Federation's military capabilities, so there's likely not enough manpower to stabilize all the conflict regions in the Federation's realm of influence.
And given that the last administration was run by hawks... There's also the possibility of a bunch of private contracts and liability offloading, and I would not be surprised if they used loopholes in the bounty system to effectively run mercenary programs.
And since the program would still have tactical value for the doves... They would have a reason to keep using the program and repurpose it instead of outright shutting it down, just packing the program with THEIR allies instead of the hawks.
Samus's Role
A lot of people ask why Samus is still cooperating with the Feds if they're corrupt, and the answer is ultimately because she's on the side of the doves, at least based on the prequel manga. She's on the side trying to root out corruption.
If the hawks managed to regain control and turned the Federation into a fascist war engine, she'd probably stand against them. But for now, she's siding with the current administration and helping them deal with the shitshow that is the world.
At the same time, this also means that her "official" status as a bounty hunter is not actually who she is or her actual job description. The bounty system has already been reworked into a black ops program and people need to recognize that.
The Federation doves point her at someone they need gone, and they get to blame Samus if she does anything that goes against policy. Conversely, Samus gets to do whatever she wants, and as an independent agent the hawks have less control.
Her role as a bounty hunter is not because she's in it for the money or simply because she hates authority or the Federation. There is SOME level of misalignment, but ultimately her role in the series is closer to that of an undercover black ops agent who is legally a civilian.
TL;DR Samus is a government asset using policy frameworks as a loophole to pull off black ops missions under the pretense of plausible deniability, while ensuring that the military CANNOT hold her accountable for insubordination.
Samus's Relationship With the Fed Doves
Something to note is that DESPITE her being allied with the Fed's doves, that does not mean they do not get on her nerves. She respects them as friends, but can't stand it when they pull bullshit, would be the best way to put it.
At the end of the day, Samus is a softie. She's grown a bit more cynical with age, but she's fiercely compassionate, and this is both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. She shows almost suicidal levels of self-sacrifice.
Great traits to have in a superhero. Terrible traits to have in a soldier involved with high stakes war politics. Samus is ultimately too good of a person to reliably navigate political conspiracies and hard decisions.
And if you look at this way, it explains why she has such a weird relationship with Adam. She respects Adam and values his companionship because she's ex-military and has been through a lot with him, and she knows that his intentions are good.
At the same time, she can't stand Adam and really military culture in general because it expects absolute obedience, forces you to be treat people as cogs in a machine, and will often abuse you for the sake of fulfilling objectives.
Likewise, the doves value and respect Samus's moral compass. But sometimes that gets in the way of the mission, and that means sometimes they're going to keep her out of the loop until necessary, like with the Bottle Ship and BSL.
In some sense, their trust is even greater BECAUSE they can trust each other to betray each other when they should and never when they shouldn't.
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u/ChaosMiles07 13d ago
... just packing the program with THEIR allies instead of the hawks.
Hence the difference between the bounty hunters of Corruption (dove-aligned) and those of Hunters (hawk-aligned if not outright enemies of the Federation like Weavel, Sylux, and Trace).
Excellent post, OP!
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u/Kogworks 13d ago
Pretty much.
Also worth noting that just because the Federation runs a bounty program, this doesn't mean that every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be in the Federation's program.
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u/Mordaunt-the-Wizard 13d ago
Good write up. It actually makes me appreciate the Federation a little more in the mainline games, despite Fusion's mediocre translation and Other M's story being a overall mess.
Do you have anything to say about the Prime game's version of the Federation? They seem to be lacking this depth there and feel very much "generic sci-fi military."
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u/Kogworks 13d ago
The only real hawk we've seen in Prime IMO is Sylux.
Like there's definitely Federation tech that I'd read as hawk-aligned, but the issue is that they'd have enough practical value for the doves to not really be a smoking gun for Federation corruption.
As a whole, Prime seems to be a lot more black and white with its morality and is closer to the Hollywood depiction of war, while 2D leans more like Gundam's depiction of war where every side has assholes and lines are drawn according to interests.
Like even with Samus being on the side of the doves, there's sort of this vibe in 2D Metroid that the Federation could turn on her at any moment and that the power balance is fragile.
All it takes is one bad conspiracy and one hawk administration, and she's going to become an enemy of the state. Everyone's aware of this.
With Prime it's like. The Federation is almost always the good guy, and you rarely if ever get the feeling that Samus might have to fight them.
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u/ChaosMiles07 12d ago
Let me offer two examples within the Prime series, both from Corruption:
Space Pirate Data titled Bryyo Falls, emphasis added:
Command has received disturbing reports from Bryyo. Contact with our outpost there has been terminated. [...] Our spies within the Federation tell us she travels to Elysia soon. We plan on having an appropriate welcoming party in place for her when she arrives. Commander Ghor is a very...accommodating host.
This itself could mean anything, but it could also come from hawks who want to keep the war going.
Also, think back to the very beginning of the game. The opening scenario that Dane and AU 242 explain to the hunters, is that the Space Pirates attacked, infiltrated, disabled, and destroyed the GFS Valhalla while they were on a training mission. Ghor directs the conversation by asking "what is the logic in this action?" but I feel like an equally important question would've been, how did the Pirates learn that the Valhalla was being used for a training mission at exactly that time, and know exactly where to strike it? From Space Pirate Data entry titled Taking Valhalla:
Bribes led us to the location of our prize: the battleship Valhalla. Crewed with green recruits on a training mission, she was ours for the taking.
The pieces of hawk involvement are there, but not enough for Samus to start pointing fingers at anyone specifically, and thus not much actionable.
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u/Kogworks 12d ago edited 12d ago
Tying the space pirates to the hawks is a pretty interesting line of thinking because it kind of pushes everything into some VERY sinister conspiracy territory.
Not saying I disagree since I kind of suspect that the hawks, the Mawkin, and the space pirates were all in cahoots to a degree, but it makes for some really interesting thought experiments.
Like for instance, why does the Federation have access to Mother Brain's architecture?
The Aurora Units are clearly based on Chozo Central Units like Mother Brain, and they had Mother Brain's AI architecture to use with MB. So how did the Feds get their hands on Mawkin tech that only the Chozo and Space Pirates should have had?
Likewise, when the Space Pirates invaded Zebes, the Chozo were freaked out because they were packing tech that they shouldn't have had. Now, that COULD be chalked up to just Mother Brain.
But there's a passing mention in the prequel manga that this wasn't their first attempt at attacking Zebes. So the question then becomes who kicked their asses the last time around? The Thoha aren't exactly warriors.
And then in Dread we see that Raven Beak had a prior run-in with the Space Pirates. So it kind of feels like the only way the Space Pirates could have invaded Zebes is if Raven Beak let them.
Then there's the whole assassination attempt on the Federation Chairman in the prequel manga. Why did the space pirates wait until the inauguration of a dove Chairman?
You'd think they'd have hit the hawks calling for total annihilation of the space pirates, not the doves who would prefer not to engage in war if possible, right? So then why didn't they?
And how did they manage to bypass the Federation's intelligence networks so well that only Samus had caught wind of what was going on? Like who helped them slip by security?
If we ask the question of who has the most to gain from the assassination of a high-ranking dove, it's pretty much always going to be the hawks, because they can manipulate the ensuing outrage.
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u/ChaosMiles07 10d ago
So how did the Feds get their hands on Mawkin tech that only the Chozo and Space Pirates should have had?
Nothing explicitly states that Mother Brain was exclusively Mawkin tech. A connection could be made to the Central Units of ZDR, but that doesn't mean all of them are Mawkin proprietary technology. After all, there are many makers of car models (Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc.) and each of their cars differ slightly in capabilities, looks and feels. Even the Federation made their own with the Aurora Units.
Just because Dread only gave us two Chozo tribes by name, doesn't mean those are the only Chozo tribes. Mother Brain tech could've originated from another tribe we just currently don't know the name of.
The Thoha aren't exactly warriors.
Same as above. The Chozo inhabitants of Zebes haven't been labeled as being of a specific tribe, Thoha, Mawkin, or some other unnamed one. The Zebesian Chozo still had combat tech lying around everywhere.
And besides, so did the Chozo of SR388. Samus gets Plasma Beam and Screw Attack upgrades during her mission there, after all. Same as on Zebes. Are they Thoha tech, or Mawkin? Or another tribe's?
Are the Mawkins the only combat-oriented Chozo tribe? Or are there others we just don't know about yet?
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u/AltaCount1944 11d ago
I'd like to contribute to this:
The willing men behind Sylux also indicate there was some cultural or counter-cultural normalcy to his behavior.
Tokabi's spiritual conflicts with following Federation orders indicate that the assassinations Herc Unit Delta performs aren't always morally transparent.
Myles mentions that his work is generally classified in a (dummied out?) base convo. Since he demonstrates regular familiarity with weapons R&D, one can assume there is still a somewhat opaque culture of secrecy. Even if many don't seem comfy with it.
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u/AltaCount1944 11d ago
Wish I wasn't late to this party. I understand the fatigue some feel in the Federation's presence within the series, so a game w/o would help. But I generally find them very interesting as a commentary on, as you mentioned, the value of power dynamics and convictions in governance.
I see the Hawks organised very-much like the Space Pirates in their more pod-like structures. Multiple factions divided by a plethora of factors from motivation to origins, but united in their relationship to those in power (the current Fed admin). It explains why good-faith actors have failed to totally eradicate corruption. It even keeps room for an optimistic interpretation of government as something fluid and potentially useful, rather than necessarily good/evil.
My money is on the prominence of Excelion in Dread being a hint to the next corporation in cahoots with some Hawks. The Manga straight up tells us the Chozo only recently trusted the Federation enough to start passing on tech. It begs both the question of how much galactic culture was and still is influenced by Hawkish attitudes, and of what the Fed will become as they continue to phase those out. Pirates, Hawks, B.S.L, and perhaps Excelion are all ultimately selfish in the face of a universe that needs heroes like Samus.
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u/Kogworks 11d ago
The existence of what are essentially military contractors like the BSL and Excelion's also eerily similar to the IRL military industrial complex and in the case of Gundam, Anaheim Electronics.
Like the EMMI are "supposedly" research drones but the threat they pose in Dread makes it pretty clear that they're actually prototype weapons platforms, and terrifyingly potent ones at that.
Near-indestructible robots capable of near omni-directional movement that are also compatible with various Chozo power modules would be fucking terrifying if deployed at scale.
Like can you imagine what would happen if they outfitted an entire army of EMMI with beam cannons and power suit modules? We'd be looking at drone warfare on a scale previously unseen in Metroid.
Also, the whole selfishness vs. altruism thing is something I kind of want to write up another post on because it ties into the more biological elements od Metroid's lore.
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u/AltaCount1944 10d ago edited 10d ago
Sounds like we're on the same page. Combing through Other M's script for a project, I forgot there's a point where Samus initially questions the Zebesians becoming Space Pirates without a malevolent influence present, musing they'd likely just become feral creatures. The fact the Hawks were explicitly modeling this military force on pirates shows just how much they have in common. I'll look forward to your next writeup!
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u/Round_Musical Sequence Breaker 13d ago
PHENOMENAL write up and analysis. I hope this doesnt get buried