Metroid Science

2004-03-30 05:11:16 pm

'sup. Yep, you've probably seen this before. However, the one thing that ruined this topic on the GFAQs board was all the idiots that run around. I notice rather a lot less idiots here, so i figured this would be a nice place to make one. And my hats off to whoever thought of posting this. Now, in case you haven't seen one of these before, somoene asks a question about how something works, i.e. How does Morph Ball work, what are missle upgrades made of, etc. We then try and think of anything that could explain it. Now, as stated above, i wish for this to be an intelligent discussion. Hence, there are 6 rules.

1) Yes, we know it's a game. No need to tell us that.

2) At least make an effort to check if your questions already been asked.

3) No saying someone's idea is stupid. We're arguing about science in a video game, most of us take that as granted.

4) Please, at least make an effort to try and make your post legible. This stuff will probably be complicated enough on it's own to understand

5) No theories on storyline, plot, order, etc. This is pure science. If you think you have come up with the true plot of the metroid series, feel free to post it in the forum, along with the other 272 people there.

6) If anyone has transcripts of the orignal MP science thread, I would rather appreciate it. E-mail's in my profile. ^_^

Thank you. First question?

Thread title:

'sup.  Yep, you've probably seen this before.  However, the one thing that ruined this topic on the GFAQs board was all the idiots that run around.  I notice rather a lot less idiots here, so i figured this would be a nice place to make one.  And my hats off to whoever thought of posting this.  Now, in case you haven't seen one of these before, somoene asks a question about how something works, i.e. How does Morph Ball work, what are missle upgrades made of, etc.  We then try and think of anything that could explain it.  Now, as stated above, i wish for this to be an intelligent discussion.  Hence, there are 6 rules.

1) Yes, we know it's a game.  No need to tell us that.

2) At least make an effort to check if your questions already been asked.

3) No saying someone's idea is stupid.  We're arguing about science in a video game, most of us take that as granted.

4) Please, at least make an effort to try and make your post legible.  This stuff will probably be complicated enough on it's own to understand

5) No theories on storyline, plot, order, etc.  This is pure science.  If you think you have come up with the true plot of the metroid series, feel free to post it in the forum, along with the other 272 people there.

6) If anyone has transcripts of the orignal MP science thread, I would rather appreciate it. E-mail's in my profile.  ^_^

Thank you.  First question?

Toozin

2004-03-30 05:12:21 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

STOP WITH THE GIANT AVATAR!

Metroid Prime

2004-03-30 05:13:17 pm

It's not there... :? And how do you get it that big?

Toozin

2004-03-30 05:14:09 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Because I deleted it.

This has got to be a new record for fastest thread derailing for me.

Metroid Prime

2004-03-30 05:16:35 pm

Quote from Toozin:

Because I deleted it.

This has got to be a new record for fastest thread derailing for me.

Nice Toozin, nice.

SABERinBLUE

2004-03-30 05:32:24 pm

Cook of the Sea

This is a subject I'm interested, though, (of course... Speculation debate, Saber, the go hand in hand...) so let's start with the most obvious one: Morph Ball.

Lip Wiggle of Death

Laughing

professor_scissors

2004-03-30 06:33:23 pm

Well, there are many possibilities for how she Morph Balls... let's take a stab at it.

First and easiest: Squeezing. Let's say that Samus and her suit together weigh, for example, 100 kg. Judging from Metroid: Prime, I'd put the morphball as about 40 cm high.
Density = M/V
M = 100 kg
V = 4/3*PI*r^3 = 1.2m^3 = 33 L
Final Density: 3.03 g/mL
For a quick comparison, Aluminum comes in at 2.64 g/mL, and Brass is about 8.5. Not unreasonable. The only real problem is the logistics of cramming her body into the available space while keeping her alive.

Second: Energy. This is supported by the Getting Morph Ball cutscene in Prime, that Samus becomes some kind of energy form.
But just how much energy would that be?
Mass: 100kg
E=MC^2
E=(100kg) * (9x10^9m/s) = 9x10^11 J. That's about 1% of Hiroshima, and on par with the total output of one Saturn V rocket. That's a pretty penny.
As to whether or not it could be contained within the Ball, that depends on the power of Chozo technology.

PessimistByNature

2004-03-30 07:54:53 pm

Yeah, sorry bout that. I just imported it from off site, noticed it was too big, and deleted it. Guess it was still there for all y'all tho >.<

Anyway, thank you prof scissors, for being the first person to respond with something not related to how big each other's ava is. ^_^ I was thinking, obviously the Chozo DNA has changed her physiological structure. She also has a means of survival without food or water/has stores of in suit. Suppose the Chozo DNA gave her the ability to shut down certain parts of her cirulatory system at will. Any tissue that is not necessary to live, think, move, and lay bombs could be put in a type of sleep. Hence, the majority of her lungs could collapse, her digestive system would come to a near halt. Her limbs as well, minus what would be necessary to control the ball (how much that is, i do not know.) The majority of her blood vessels could close, perhaps opening up an alternate circulatory system that still allows blood to the vital parts of the body. It is unkown if the reproductive system of Samus still works, howerver, there is a bit of space that could collapse there. The question is, with all that, could she fit in the Morph Ball? Keep in mind, I'm only a high school freshman, if I've missed a key point, feel free to tell me. (And I know that being able to do all that is near impossible, I'm just speaking hypothetically.)

Yeah, sorry bout that.  I just imported it from off site, noticed it was too big, and deleted it.  Guess it was still there for all y'all tho >.<

Anyway, thank you prof scissors, for being the first person to respond with something not related to how big each other's ava is. ^_^  I was thinking, obviously the Chozo DNA has changed her physiological structure.  She also has a means of survival without food or water/has stores of in suit.  Suppose the Chozo DNA gave her the ability to shut down certain parts of her cirulatory system at will.  Any tissue that is not necessary to live, think, move, and lay bombs could be put in a type of sleep.  Hence, the majority of her lungs could collapse, her digestive system would come to a near halt.  Her limbs as well, minus what would be necessary to control the ball (how much that is, i do not know.)  The majority of her blood vessels could close, perhaps opening up an alternate circulatory system that still allows blood to the vital parts of the body.  It is unkown if the reproductive system of Samus still works, howerver, there is a bit of space that could collapse there.  The question is, with all that, could she fit in the Morph Ball?  Keep in mind, I'm only a high school freshman, if I've missed a key point, feel free to tell me.  (And I know that being able to do all that is near impossible, I'm just speaking hypothetically.)

RoboBlob

2004-03-30 08:15:23 pm

Quote from professor_scissors:

Well, there are many possibilities for how she Morph Balls... let's take a stab at it.

First and easiest: Squeezing. Let's say that Samus and her suit together weigh, for example, 100 kg. Judging from Metroid: Prime, I'd put the morphball as about 40 cm high.
Density = M/V
M = 100 kg
V = 4/3*PI*r^3 = 1.2m^3 = 33 L
Final Density: 3.03 g/mL
For a quick comparison, Aluminum comes in at 2.64 g/mL, and Brass is about 8.5. Not unreasonable. The only real problem is the logistics of cramming her body into the available space while keeping her alive.

Second: Energy. This is supported by the Getting Morph Ball cutscene in Prime, that Samus becomes some kind of energy form.
But just how much energy would that be?
Mass: 100kg
E=MC^2
E=(100kg) * (9x10^9m/s) = 9x10^11 J. That's about 1% of Hiroshima, and on par with the total output of one Saturn V rocket. That's a pretty penny.
As to whether or not it could be contained within the Ball, that depends on the power of Chozo technology.

Holy shit! Who gives a fuck? Shocked

[quote="professor_scissors"]Well, there are many possibilities for how she Morph Balls... let's take a stab at it.

First and easiest: Squeezing. Let's say that Samus and her suit together weigh, for example, 100 kg. Judging from Metroid: Prime, I'd put the morphball as about 40 cm high.
Density = M/V
M = 100 kg
V = 4/3*PI*r^3 = 1.2m^3 = 33 L
Final Density:  3.03 g/mL
For a quick comparison, Aluminum comes in at 2.64 g/mL, and Brass is about 8.5. Not unreasonable. The only real problem is the logistics of cramming her body into the available space while keeping her alive.

Second: Energy. This is supported by the Getting Morph Ball cutscene in Prime, that Samus becomes some kind of energy form. 
But just how much energy would that be?
Mass: 100kg
E=MC^2
E=(100kg) * (9x10^9m/s) = 9x10^11 J. That's about 1% of Hiroshima, and on par with the total output of one [i]Saturn V[/i] rocket. That's a pretty penny. 
As to whether or not it could be contained within the Ball, that depends on the power of Chozo technology.[/quote]
Holy shit! Who gives a fuck?  :shock:

chinchillax13514

2004-03-30 08:55:47 pm

Well, I find it intersting. Personally, I think it's a combination of ideas. First, she squats down into the smallest she can get. Then, her power suit inflates and forms itself into a ball and goes around her. Then, some Chozo magic like thing happens, and she shrinks down to the size of the Morph Ball. That or she doesn't squat in it, but just stands up like normal, while shrink, inside the ball, and moves it like a hamster. There's some buttons thingy's on the side for the Bombs and Power Bombs. Which also leads me to two other questions. 1. How do the Morph Ball Bombs regenerate. 2. How come the Power Bombs don't hurt Samus?

PessimistByNature

2004-03-30 09:00:19 pm

We do, apparently. ^_^

See my above post. Though the idea of shrinkage is a convenient one, I like to think there's something more scientific involved. Besides, if they had shrink ray technology, why doesn't Samus just shrink her ship and carry it around, and then un-shrink it when she needs missles. Which gives me another thought. Alright, take the hypothetical shrink ray, which for the purpose of an argument lets say reduces things by half. Take a box, and shrink it. Then put it in a box that is just big enough to hold it. Continue fitting box into box until it is the size of the original box. Then shrink it again and repeat. If you were to do this an infinite amount of times, would the box eventally become dense enough to collapse in on itself and produce an artifical black hole?

Syl

2004-03-30 10:04:59 pm

judging by what little we know of the morphball, i find it pretty obvious that the first stage of morphing involves her rolling into a ball like form.

first crouching, then probably hands around the knees, or something similar to that.

according to some figure i heard somewhere thats apparently accurate in some way, the ball is actually a full METER in diamater, (likewise, samus herself is surprisngly a VERY tall women, boredering or surpassing 6 feet) which in turn, almost gives you the the ability for her entire body to fit into the ball.

The fact that it turns into the mysterious, glowy energy in prime is something i call an "excuse", though it may be a cool looking excuse, i still believe thats all it is. I'm sure that the same sort of morphing chozo technology that effects her arm and other parts of her suit actually DOES do some sort of physical change on her body, considering that she is *part* of the suit when shes inside of it, i wouldn't be surprised if her entire body just countours to the outside of the box, theres still the same amount of matter involved, its just placed differently.

Samus seems to have an absurdly good sense of balance and direction, something i'm sure came from her chozo blood. (Which, as the e-comic mentions, was actually injected into he so that she could survive living on Zebes, whatever harsh conditions that implies). This is also demonstrated with her absurd spinny acrobatic skills, just how does she always land on her feet? Wink

Considering how much she can spin just by some random movement in the air (its possible to spin mid jump if you try hard enough in most games) i'm sure that helps her control where the ball is moving.
How she sees anything though.. well, uhh....

think for me =p

judging by what little we know of the morphball, i find it pretty obvious that the first stage of morphing involves her rolling into a ball like form.

first crouching, then probably hands around the knees, or something similar to that.

according to some figure i heard somewhere thats apparently accurate in some way, the ball is actually a full METER in diamater, (likewise, samus herself is surprisngly a VERY tall women, boredering or surpassing 6 feet)  which in turn, almost gives you the the ability for her entire body to fit into the ball.

The fact that it turns into the mysterious, glowy energy in prime is something i call an "excuse", though it may be a cool looking excuse, i still believe thats all it is.  I'm sure that the same sort of morphing chozo technology that effects her arm and other parts of her suit actually DOES do some sort of physical change on her body, considering that she is *part* of the suit when shes inside of it, i wouldn't be surprised if her entire body just countours to the outside of the box, theres still the same amount of matter involved, its just placed differently.

Samus seems to have an absurdly good sense of balance and direction, something i'm sure came from her chozo blood.  (Which, as the e-comic mentions, was actually injected into he so that she could survive living on Zebes, whatever harsh conditions that implies).  This is also demonstrated with her absurd spinny acrobatic skills, just how does she always land on her feet?  :wink: 
Considering how much she can spin just by some random movement in the air (its possible to spin mid jump if you try hard enough in most games) i'm sure that helps her control where the ball is moving.  
How she sees anything though.. well, uhh....

think for me =p

Yoshi348

2004-03-30 10:12:22 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Quote from chinchillax13514:

1. How do the Morph Ball Bombs regenerate. 2. How come the Power Bombs don't hurt Samus?

These two are a lot eaiser with Prime's "energy bombs". The morph ball would be equipped to absorb the energy from a bomb blast and use it to make another one (and of course, not get hurt). Power Bombs, on the other hand...

Wassup Dawgs

2004-03-30 10:17:23 pm

Well, in prime, power bombs will either kill or be harmless to certain creatures. Samus must be one of those lucky creatures who can't be harmed by a power bomb.

Yoshi348

2004-03-30 11:00:42 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Quote from PessimistByNature:

If you were to do this an infinite amount of times, would the box eventally become dense enough to collapse in on itself and produce an artifical black hole?

Interesting... hmmm...

*uses magikal powers of google*

Oooh, I like this site. It has this nifty picture.

Okay, so that doesn't have anything to do with boxes. But it's neat! Okay... Only stars greater than 3 times the mass of the sun become black holes. I'm assuming the process doesn't care if there was a hydrogen force to begin with, just that it is big enough when nothing is keeping it afloat.

*googles*

The sun's mass is about 2*10^20 kilograms. Now, for this question to work, we have to assume it retains the same mass even after shrinking. (This, of course, would invalidate it for it's orignal purpose of shrinking Samus, but even if it didn't keep the mass, you'd still have surface area/mass ratio problems.) So, let's see...

Our box will have a mass of M kilograms, and let's assume it's a cubic box with length L and a rim width (how thick the sides are) of W. Now, each time we shrink the box, we end up with a box with a mass of M kilograms, and... ooh. You didn't specify whether it shrunk LENGTHS in half, or VOLUME in half. So it'll either have a new length of

L/2 or
sqrt[(L^2)/2] = [L*sqrt(2)]/2

respectively, which leaves us with either

L/2 or
[1-sqrt(2)]L/2

to fill before we get to shrink again. For convinience, we'll call the first pair N1 and the second N2. Now, that means we need int[N2/W] boxes before we shrink again, adding M*int[N2/W] mass. Now, let's cheat a bit and assume W evenly divides into N2. Shouldn't be too hard to make on purpose anyway for this experiment. That means we can set up a function, f(x), where x is the amount of shrinkings we have done, that gives us the mass of the box.

f(x)=M + [M*N2*x]/W

Now, this function obviously can go as high as you want it to. HOWEVER, the problem is is that we can't have the W of the first box go below the width of an atom, or we'd end up in quantum physics world and we'll have all sorts of other things to consider. Now... again, considering the thing we're actually halving, the inner width will be

W/2^x or
W/(sqrt[2]^x).

The width of an atom is... *google* 1.3 * 10^(-10) meters. Therefore, f(x) must reach 6*10^20 before W/2x or W/x(sqrt[2]) reaches 1.3 * 10^(-10).

Now, W is going to be at most 2 cm, or 1/5 of a meter. So x will go to either *whips out calculator* 30 or 61. That means that either

A) [shrinker halves lengths] (75L+1)M must be greater than 6*10^20. Ain't gonna happen, unless you start with a damn big box.

B) {305L/[sqrt(2)]+1}M must be greater than 6*10^20. Same deal.

IN CONCLUSION... since no one will read all that, the answer is is that we could only make a black hole this way if the shrinker can shrink things to sizes less than an atom. Which would make problems.

... Man, I need to get out more.

[quote="PessimistByNature"]If you were to do this an infinite amount of times, would the box eventally become dense enough to collapse in on itself and produce an artifical black hole?[/quote]
Interesting... hmmm...

*uses magikal powers of google*

[url=http://www.rdrop.com/users/green/school/form.htm]Oooh, I like this site. It has this nifty picture.[/url]
[img]http://www.rdrop.com/users/green/school/collapse.gif[/img]

Okay, so that doesn't have anything to do with boxes. But it's neat! Okay... Only stars greater than 3 times the mass of the sun become black holes. I'm assuming the process doesn't care if there was a hydrogen force to begin with, just that it is big enough when nothing is keeping it afloat.

*googles*

The sun's mass is about 2*10^20 kilograms. Now, for this question to work, we have to assume it retains the same mass even after shrinking. (This, of course, would invalidate it for it's orignal purpose of shrinking Samus, but even if it didn't keep the mass, you'd still have surface area/mass ratio problems.) So, let's see...

Our box will have a mass of M kilograms, and let's assume it's a cubic box with length L and a rim width (how thick the sides are) of W. Now, each time we shrink the box, we end up with a box with a mass of M kilograms, and... ooh. You didn't specify whether it shrunk LENGTHS in half, or VOLUME in half. So it'll either have a new length of

L/2 or 
sqrt[(L^2)/2] = [L*sqrt(2)]/2

respectively, which leaves us with either

L/2 or
[1-sqrt(2)]L/2

to fill before we get to shrink again. For convinience, we'll call the first pair N1 and the second N2. Now, that means we need int[N2/W] boxes before we shrink again, adding M*int[N2/W] mass. Now, let's cheat a bit and assume W evenly divides into N2. Shouldn't be too hard to make on purpose anyway for this experiment. That means we can set up a function, f(x), where x is the amount of shrinkings we have done, that gives us the mass of the box.

f(x)=M + [M*N2*x]/W

Now, this function obviously can go as high as you want it to. HOWEVER, the problem is is that we can't have the W of the first box go below the width of an atom, or we'd end up in quantum physics world and we'll have all sorts of other things to consider. Now... again, considering the thing we're actually halving, the inner width will be

W/2^x or
W/(sqrt[2]^x).

The width of an atom is... *google* 1.3 * 10^(-10) meters. Therefore, f(x) must reach 6*10^20 before W/2x or W/x(sqrt[2]) reaches 1.3 * 10^(-10).

Now, W is going to be at most 2 cm, or 1/5 of a meter. So x will go to either *whips out calculator* 30 or 61. That means that either

A) [shrinker halves lengths] (75L+1)M must be greater than 6*10^20. Ain't gonna happen, unless you start with a damn big box.

B) {305L/[sqrt(2)]+1}M must be greater than 6*10^20. Same deal.

[b][size=24px][color=red]IN CONCLUSION... since no one will read all that, the answer is is that we could only make a black hole this way if the shrinker can shrink things to sizes less than an atom. Which would make problems.[/color][/size][/b]

... Man, I need to get out more.

The Last Metroid

2004-03-30 11:43:12 pm

Quote from Yoshi348:

Quote from PessimistByNature:

If you were to do this an infinite amount of times, would the box eventally become dense enough to collapse in on itself and produce an artifical black hole?

Interesting... hmmm...

*uses magikal powers of google*

Oooh, I like this site. It has this nifty picture.

Okay, so that doesn't have anything to do with boxes. But it's neat! Okay... Only stars greater than 3 times the mass of the sun become black holes. I'm assuming the process doesn't care if there was a hydrogen force to begin with, just that it is big enough when nothing is keeping it afloat.

*googles*

The sun's mass is about 2*10^20 kilograms. Now, for this question to work, we have to assume it retains the same mass even after shrinking. (This, of course, would invalidate it for it's orignal purpose of shrinking Samus, but even if it didn't keep the mass, you'd still have surface area/mass ratio problems.) So, let's see...

Our box will have a mass of M kilograms, and let's assume it's a cubic box with length L and a rim width (how thick the sides are) of W. Now, each time we shrink the box, we end up with a box with a mass of M kilograms, and... ooh. You didn't specify whether it shrunk LENGTHS in half, or VOLUME in half. So it'll either have a new length of

L/2 or
sqrt[(L^2)/2] = [L*sqrt(2)]/2

respectively, which leaves us with either

L/2 or
[1-sqrt(2)]L/2

to fill before we get to shrink again. For convinience, we'll call the first pair N1 and the second N2. Now, that means we need int[N2/W] boxes before we shrink again, adding M*int[N2/W] mass. Now, let's cheat a bit and assume W evenly divides into N2. Shouldn't be too hard to make on purpose anyway for this experiment. That means we can set up a function, f(x), where x is the amount of shrinkings we have done, that gives us the mass of the box.

f(x)=M + [M*N2*x]/W

Now, this function obviously can go as high as you want it to. HOWEVER, the problem is is that we can't have the W of the first box go below the width of an atom, or we'd end up in quantum physics world and we'll have all sorts of other things to consider. Now... again, considering the thing we're actually halving, the inner width will be

W/2^x or
W/(sqrt[2]^x).

The width of an atom is... *google* 1.3 * 10^(-10) meters. Therefore, f(x) must reach 6*10^20 before W/2x or W/x(sqrt[2]) reaches 1.3 * 10^(-10).

Now, W is going to be at most 2 cm, or 1/5 of a meter. So x will go to either *whips out calculator* 30 or 61. That means that either

A) [shrinker halves lengths] (75L+1)M must be greater than 6*10^20. Ain't gonna happen, unless you start with a damn big box.

B) {305L/[sqrt(2)]+1}M must be greater than 6*10^20. Same deal.

IN CONCLUSION... since no one will read all that, the answer is is that we could only make a black hole this way if the shrinker can shrink things to sizes less than an atom. Which would make problems.

... Man, I need to get out more.

Best.Post.Ever.

I'd so sig that if it wasn't so long.

[quote="Yoshi348"][quote="PessimistByNature"]If you were to do this an infinite amount of times, would the box eventally become dense enough to collapse in on itself and produce an artifical black hole?[/quote]
Interesting... hmmm...

*uses magikal powers of google*

[url=http://www.rdrop.com/users/green/school/form.htm]Oooh, I like this site. It has this nifty picture.[/url]
[img]http://www.rdrop.com/users/green/school/collapse.gif[/img]

Okay, so that doesn't have anything to do with boxes. But it's neat! Okay... Only stars greater than 3 times the mass of the sun become black holes. I'm assuming the process doesn't care if there was a hydrogen force to begin with, just that it is big enough when nothing is keeping it afloat.

*googles*

The sun's mass is about 2*10^20 kilograms. Now, for this question to work, we have to assume it retains the same mass even after shrinking. (This, of course, would invalidate it for it's orignal purpose of shrinking Samus, but even if it didn't keep the mass, you'd still have surface area/mass ratio problems.) So, let's see...

Our box will have a mass of M kilograms, and let's assume it's a cubic box with length L and a rim width (how thick the sides are) of W. Now, each time we shrink the box, we end up with a box with a mass of M kilograms, and... ooh. You didn't specify whether it shrunk LENGTHS in half, or VOLUME in half. So it'll either have a new length of

L/2 or 
sqrt[(L^2)/2] = [L*sqrt(2)]/2

respectively, which leaves us with either

L/2 or
[1-sqrt(2)]L/2

to fill before we get to shrink again. For convinience, we'll call the first pair N1 and the second N2. Now, that means we need int[N2/W] boxes before we shrink again, adding M*int[N2/W] mass. Now, let's cheat a bit and assume W evenly divides into N2. Shouldn't be too hard to make on purpose anyway for this experiment. That means we can set up a function, f(x), where x is the amount of shrinkings we have done, that gives us the mass of the box.

f(x)=M + [M*N2*x]/W

Now, this function obviously can go as high as you want it to. HOWEVER, the problem is is that we can't have the W of the first box go below the width of an atom, or we'd end up in quantum physics world and we'll have all sorts of other things to consider. Now... again, considering the thing we're actually halving, the inner width will be

W/2^x or
W/(sqrt[2]^x).

The width of an atom is... *google* 1.3 * 10^(-10) meters. Therefore, f(x) must reach 6*10^20 before W/2x or W/x(sqrt[2]) reaches 1.3 * 10^(-10).

Now, W is going to be at most 2 cm, or 1/5 of a meter. So x will go to either *whips out calculator* 30 or 61. That means that either

A) [shrinker halves lengths] (75L+1)M must be greater than 6*10^20. Ain't gonna happen, unless you start with a damn big box.

B) {305L/[sqrt(2)]+1}M must be greater than 6*10^20. Same deal.

[b][size=24px][color=red]IN CONCLUSION... since no one will read all that, the answer is is that we could only make a black hole this way if the shrinker can shrink things to sizes less than an atom. Which would make problems.[/color][/size][/b]

... Man, I need to get out more.[/quote]

Best.Post.Ever.

I'd so sig that if it wasn't so long.

skynes

2004-03-31 08:18:43 am

Don't expect any fancy formulas from me. they pickle my head. Instead you're just going to gets LOTS of speculation.

Morph Ball.

As the power suit is PART of Samus when she morphs into morph ball the suit's functions could make up for what Samus can't do at the time - Breathe, Pump blood etc.

It's possible that her entire body just gets converted into energy and kept inside the ball which has its own gravity to keep the energy inside.

GUIDING MORPH BALL
How she knows where she's going - Since her body is pure energy she won't have 'eyes' anymore so she could possibly see everything in ALL directions or maybe she sees herself in 3rd person (much like the Prime view)
It could also be the suits built in scanners doing it for her.

MOVEMENT + BOMBS
As to hohw she moves and lays bombs - As the suit is part of her some of its functions could be done just by thinking it, so she could think 'Lay Bomb' and the morph ball will lay a bomb.

Regenerating Bombs - How does Samus continually fire her power beam? The suit must have some sort of continual power generator that allows her to repeatedly fire her weapons without recharging.

It's possible that since in Morph Ball she doesn't HAVE a power beam the power that would be used to fire it gets diverted to morph ball weapon systems.

Just in the way you can't rapid fire the ice beam as the suit probably needs to build up the energy for another shot the suit needs to recharge the energy for a morph ball bomb.

-------------------

Power Beam weapons - An hypothesis on how her power beam fires multiple kinds of beams.

Fire is energy. Electricity is energy. Power Beam is energy. Her weapon systems are probably capable of transforming energy into different forms.

Originally she has the power beam. It can be fired very quickly. It probably takes less time to fire energy than it does if it had to convert the energy into a different form.

Wave Beam - Electricity is close to energy, so changing energy into electricity wouldn't be so difficult thus the Wave Beam can be fired quite quickly.

Plasma Beam - Fire is also a form of energy (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) so the suit would only need to 'heat up' the energy to fire the plasma beam.

Ice Beam - This is the slowest firing weapon of all. Reason:

Ice is not energy, cold is not energy, it is a LACK of energy/heat.
To fire the ice beam the arm cannon would need to 'suck in' water vapour, then eject ALL the energy and heat in the cannon out of it thus freezing the cannon (giving it the ice effect) the water vapour in the cannon now freezes. When the beam is fired, the cannon resets and takes in energy again warming up the beam and removing the ice. Then it must restart the process to fire again.

This more complex transformation would take longer than simply firing an energy bolt as in the power beam which is why it takes longer.

Missiles - Notice how the missiles you collect glow? I've had a thought that they aren't literal missiles but actually a form of explosive energy. The arm cannon encases this energy in some sort of energy field using the arm cannons energy from the beam weapons, then it fires, when striking its target this field collapses releasing the explosive energy which detonates.

The missile expansions which are picked up are probably only CONTAINERS to keep this energy contained to stop it from exploding.

As the missiles need an energy field around them the arm cannon must generate this field, this would take time thus creating the lag between missiles shots

What about the rapid fire you say? Well when the cannon switches to beam mode the cannon will be flooded with energy to fire the weapon, then when the missile fire is triggered the neergy is put into the cannon immediately encased in the energy already there and is fired.

OVERVIEW
Normal missiles - Basically the Explosive E is put in first, then regular E is put in, the Explosive E is encased in regular E and is then fired.

Rapd Missiles - Weapon already filled with regular E, Explosive E encased in it and fired.

I'll get onto Missile Combos later.

Don't expect any fancy formulas from me. they pickle my head. Instead you're just going to gets LOTS of speculation.

[b]Morph Ball.[/b]

As the power suit is PART of Samus when she morphs into morph ball the suit's functions could make up for what Samus can't do at the time - Breathe, Pump blood etc.

It's possible that her entire body just gets converted into energy and kept inside the ball which has its own gravity to keep the energy inside.

[b]GUIDING MORPH BALL[/b]
How she knows where she's going - Since her body is pure energy she won't have 'eyes' anymore so she could possibly see everything in ALL directions or maybe she sees herself in 3rd person (much like the Prime view)
It could also be the suits built in scanners doing it for her.
[b]
MOVEMENT + BOMBS[/b]
As to hohw she moves and lays bombs - As the suit is part of her some of its functions could be done just by thinking it, so she could think 'Lay Bomb' and the morph ball will lay a bomb.

[b]Regenerating Bombs[/b] - How does Samus continually fire her power beam? The suit must have some sort of continual power generator that allows her to repeatedly fire her weapons without recharging.

It's possible that since in Morph Ball she doesn't HAVE a power beam the power that would be used to fire it gets diverted to morph ball weapon systems.

Just in the way you can't rapid fire the ice beam as the suit probably needs to build up the energy for another shot the suit needs to recharge the energy for a morph ball bomb.

-------------------

[b]Power Beam weapons[/b] - An hypothesis on how her power beam fires multiple kinds of beams.

Fire is energy. Electricity is energy. Power Beam is energy. Her weapon systems are probably capable of transforming energy into different forms.

Originally she has the [b]power beam[/b]. It can be fired very quickly. It probably takes less time to fire energy than it does if it had to convert the energy into a different form.

[b]Wave Beam[/b] - Electricity is close to energy, so changing energy into electricity wouldn't be so difficult thus the Wave Beam can be fired quite quickly.

[b]Plasma Beam[/b] - Fire is also a form of energy (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) so the suit would only need to 'heat up' the energy to fire the plasma beam.

[b]Ice Beam[/b] - This is the slowest firing weapon of all. Reason:

Ice is not energy, cold is not energy, it is a LACK of energy/heat.
To fire the ice beam the arm cannon would need to 'suck in' water vapour, then eject ALL the energy and heat in the cannon out of it thus freezing the cannon (giving it the ice effect) the water vapour in the cannon now freezes. When the beam is fired, the cannon resets and takes in energy again warming up the beam and removing the ice. Then it must restart the process to fire again.

This more complex transformation would take longer than simply firing an energy bolt as in the power beam which is why it takes longer.

[b]Missiles [/b]- Notice how the missiles you collect glow? I've had a thought that they aren't [i]literal[/i] missiles but actually a form of explosive energy. The arm cannon encases this energy in some sort of energy field using the arm cannons energy from the beam weapons, then it fires, when striking its target this field collapses releasing the explosive energy which detonates.

The missile expansions which are picked up are probably only CONTAINERS to keep this energy contained to stop it from exploding.

As the missiles need an energy field around them the arm cannon must generate this field, this would take time thus creating the lag between missiles shots

What about the rapid fire you say? Well when the cannon switches to beam mode the cannon will be flooded with energy to fire the weapon, then when the missile fire is triggered the neergy is put into the cannon immediately encased in the energy already there and is fired.

[b]OVERVIEW[/b]
[b]Normal missiles[/b] - Basically the Explosive E is put in first, then regular E is put in, the Explosive E is encased in regular E and is then fired.

[b]Rapd Missiles[/b] - Weapon already filled with regular E, Explosive E encased in it and fired.

I'll get onto Missile Combos later.

Syl

2004-03-31 11:04:11 am

most of this stems on the whole "Alkaloid" deal, something that the e-comic explains and i'm sure ive mentioned repeatedly.

All living things have Alkaloid in them.

The metroids drain alkaloid out of living creatures, likewise, when something dies, its trace of alkaloid is left behind.

The alkaloid is the little energy balls and missle balls we all know and love from every single metroid game.

The reason samus can see them is because of her visor, without the visor, she wouldn't notice any traces of alkaloid in the air.

There are different types of alkaloid, probably determined about how full of life the monster was before it was brutally destroyed by our lovely heroine. The suit runs off of an alkaloid based energy source (hence, the power suit and metroids use the same energy)

The visor visually shows what the different types of alkaloid will be used for, hence why we see the little missile tanks, the power bombs (that has to be some mad alkaloid) and the energy tanks.

space pirates explained how metroids suck an energy that is in every creature, but can't be seen, this also explains that, because the pirates don't have samus' suit or the chozo technology necessary to see it.

I also believe the power suit could modify other energies into a form takable into itself, hence the recharge stations and whatnot.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but, noone liked my ball theory? T_T

most of this stems on the whole "Alkaloid" deal, something that the e-comic explains and i'm sure ive mentioned repeatedly.

All living things have Alkaloid in them.

The metroids drain alkaloid out of living creatures, likewise, when something dies, its trace of alkaloid is left behind.

The alkaloid is the little energy balls and missle balls we all know and love from every single metroid game.

The reason samus can see them is because of her visor, without the visor, she wouldn't notice any traces of alkaloid in the air.

There are different types of alkaloid, probably determined about how full of life the monster was before it was brutally destroyed by our lovely heroine.  The suit runs off of an alkaloid based energy source (hence, the power suit and metroids use the same energy)

The visor visually shows what the different types of alkaloid will be used for, hence why we see the little missile tanks, the power bombs (that has to be some mad alkaloid) and the energy tanks.

space pirates explained how metroids suck an energy that is in every creature, but can't be seen, this also explains that, because the pirates don't have samus' suit or the chozo technology necessary to see it.

I also believe the power suit could modify other energies into a form takable into itself, hence the recharge stations and whatnot.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but, noone liked my ball theory? T_T

Jaredster

2004-03-31 04:19:32 pm

Quote from Yoshi348:

Quote from chinchillax13514:

1. How do the Morph Ball Bombs regenerate. 2. How come the Power Bombs don't hurt Samus?

These two are a lot eaiser with Prime's "energy bombs". The morph ball would be equipped to absorb the energy from a bomb blast and use it to make another one (and of course, not get hurt). Power Bombs, on the other hand...

O_O Holy crap Aaron, I sorta got most of that, but then again I didn't read it all. But geez you weren't kidding about what you said at lunch.

Anyways, you need to goto www.sciforums.com , they post a lot of that stuff there in the math section . I don't know if you will find anything interesting there though, but meh, it would be a perfect change to pwn them with math skillz.

Neways, but I am going to add to your algorithm or whatever you want to call it, some thermodynamics. If you shrink the box to half the length (of sides) you will increase the temperature by 4x. Now do it again and you will get 16x the original energy. Then 64x... 256x... 1024x... and so on until the box literally supernovas before you get to the "black hole". BTW this is for a 2d box, if it was 3d space it would increase by multiples of 8 (2^3).

Btw how did you find that black hole website? Google? Google image search?

[quote="Yoshi348"][quote="chinchillax13514"]1. How do the Morph Ball Bombs regenerate. 2. How come the Power Bombs don't hurt Samus?[/quote]

These two are a lot eaiser with Prime's "energy bombs". The morph ball would be equipped to absorb the energy from a bomb blast and use it to make another one (and of course, not get hurt). Power Bombs, on the other hand...[/quote]

O_O  Holy crap Aaron, I sorta got most of that, but then again I didn't read it all.  But geez you weren't kidding about what you said at lunch.

Anyways, you need to goto www.sciforums.com , they post a lot of that stuff there in the math section .  I don't know if you will find anything interesting there though,  but meh, it would be a perfect change to pwn them with math skillz.

Neways, but I am going to add to your algorithm or whatever you want to call it, some thermodynamics.  If you shrink the box to half the length (of sides) you will increase the temperature by 4x.  Now do it again and you will get 16x the original energy.  Then 64x... 256x... 1024x... and so on until the box literally supernovas before you get to the "black hole".  BTW this is for a 2d box, if it was 3d space it would increase by multiples of 8 (2^3).

Btw how did you find that black hole website?  Google?  Google image search?

PessimistByNature

2004-03-31 05:56:26 pm

Wow, leave it alone for 1 day and look what happens. In no particular order, let me make some comments

Jaredstar: Woah. If you were let it x4 a few times, then somehow harness that excess energy, and then repeat, there would probably be enough energy to run the shrink ray x4 again, plus probably some extra, hence creating a perpetual energy machine?

Syl: Interesting. I should probably read this e-comic thing, you have a link? Another question, isn't alkaloid descriptive of an object that is either basic or acidic? And a third question, does that mean that the suit could be classified as a living thing, because it has alkaloid in it? Also, could Metroids eat your energy refills?

Shymes: Not bad, but can energy think? Also, I seem to recall that fire is just a byproduct of the release of chemical energy.

Yoshi: Thanks for solving that one for me, but damn. You do need to get out more ^_^ Also for your morphball bomb theory, directional energy could not be absorbed or Samus wouldn't be propelled up by the blast. Also, since part of the energy would be wasted to push Samus up, it would still require small amounts of energy to maintain bomb performance.

Wow, leave it alone for 1 day and look what happens.  In no particular order, let me make some comments

Jaredstar:  Woah.  If you were let it x4 a few times, then somehow harness that excess energy, and then repeat, there would probably be enough energy to run the shrink ray x4 again, plus probably some extra, hence creating a perpetual energy machine?

Syl:  Interesting.  I should probably read this e-comic thing, you have a link?  Another question, isn't alkaloid descriptive of an object that is either basic or acidic? And a third question, does that mean that the suit could be classified as a living thing, because it has alkaloid in it?  Also, could Metroids eat your energy refills?

Shymes:  Not bad, but can energy think?  Also, I seem to recall that fire is just a byproduct of the release of chemical energy.

Yoshi:  Thanks for solving that one for me, but damn.  You do need to get out more ^_^  Also for your morphball bomb theory, directional energy could not be absorbed or Samus wouldn't be propelled up by the blast.  Also, since part of the energy would be wasted to push Samus up, it would still require small amounts of energy to maintain bomb performance.

Jaredster

2004-03-31 06:25:25 pm

Quote from PessimistByNature:

Wow, leave it alone for 1 day and look what happens. In no particular order, let me make some comments

Jaredstar: Woah. If you were let it x4 a few times, then somehow harness that excess energy, and then repeat, there would probably be enough energy to run the shrink ray x4 again, plus probably some extra, hence creating a perpetual energy machine?

Uhh no, because just because it increase by 4x, it is still the same amount of thermal energy as it was before. Remeber the box shrinks to 1/4x the size.

SABERinBLUE

2004-03-31 06:51:07 pm

Cook of the Sea

Okay, in the midst of all the fascinating "Well, here's how small it would have to shrink to" I'm going to take a stab at saying how it happens. Okay. this is kind of cheesy, but I've always attributed the "magical" aspects of Chozo technology to a combination of a lot of the technology seen on Star Trek. If you look at books and technical specs and stuff, you see that a lot of it makes perfect scientific sense, assuming that the technology exists. What I mean is, they take all of the known factors inhibiting the theoretical possibility as we know it in this day and age of, say, faster-than-light travel, and they explain how the corresponding Space-Time Warp system cancels out all of those factors instead of saying "it works because it does" and leaving it at that. For this reason I consider Star Trek's technology to have a certain amount of logical progression from the technology we have today. It makes sense, to summarize.

That being said, I like to think that the Morph Ball uses some form of molecular transport technology to convert Samus and the Power Suit into energy.

We know that there is some form of this in the Metroid timeline because of how Samus takes her suit off in Zero Mission. That absolutely has to be matter-energy conversion taking place there.

Instead of focusing the energy pattern into a coherent "beam" like in Star Trek, it is spun by small tractor beams (I'm coming to where the tractor beams would be coming from, bear with me) like you see in Prime when you Morph and all that light seems to be spinning forward. This generates enough self-gravity to compress the energy pattern in on itself and be contained inside the Morph Ball, which keeps spinning the energy pattern to keep it intact.

Now, the other side of the coin. The Morph Ball shell is stored in somewhere inside the Power Suit when not in use. Whether it is stored as energy or whether it just compacts itself mechanically I haven't quite figured out. Both ways would work. Anyway, at the time that the energy pattern it focused in on itself the Morph Ball is brought out and uses micro-tractor beams to spin the energy pattern and draw it into its interior.

Plain and simple.

Okay, in the midst of all the fascinating "Well, here's how small it would have to shrink to" I'm going to take a stab at saying how it happens.  Okay.  this is kind of cheesy, but I've always attributed the "magical" aspects of Chozo technology to a combination of a lot of the technology seen on Star Trek.  If you look at books and technical specs and stuff, you see that a lot of it makes perfect scientific sense, assuming that the technology exists.  What I mean is, they take all of the known factors inhibiting the theoretical possibility as we know it in this day and age of, say, faster-than-light travel, and they explain how the corresponding Space-Time Warp system cancels out all of those factors instead of saying "it works because it does" and leaving it at that.  For this reason I consider Star Trek's technology to have a certain amount of logical progression from the technology we have today.  It makes sense, to summarize.

That being said, I like to think that the Morph Ball uses some form of molecular transport technology to convert Samus and the Power Suit into energy.

[spoiler]We know that there is some form of this in the Metroid timeline because of how Samus takes her suit off in Zero Mission.  That absolutely [i]has[/i] to be matter-energy conversion taking place there.  [/spoiler]

Instead of focusing the energy pattern into a coherent "beam" like in Star Trek, it is spun by small tractor beams (I'm coming to where the tractor beams would be coming from, bear with me) like you see in Prime when you Morph and all that light seems to be spinning forward.  This generates enough self-gravity to compress the energy pattern in on itself and be contained inside the Morph Ball, which keeps spinning the energy pattern to keep it intact.

Now, the other side of the coin.  The Morph Ball shell is stored in somewhere inside the Power Suit when not in use.  Whether it is stored as energy or whether it just compacts itself mechanically I haven't quite figured out.  Both ways would work.  Anyway, at the time that the energy pattern it focused in on itself the Morph Ball is brought out and uses micro-tractor beams to spin the energy pattern and draw it into its interior.

Plain and simple.

PessimistByNature

2004-03-31 08:11:20 pm

Oh right, duh. Sorry bout that.

Interesting theory saber. However, would the energy pattern be affected by the movement of the morph ball, i.e. if the morph ball was rotaing in the opposite direction to the energy pattern, could that cause a slight leakage of the pattern? (Keep in mind, I've never seen a Star Trek episode in my life.)

skynes

2004-04-01 06:45:42 am

I said I'd try Missile combos and here I will.
This all follows on from what I said about weapons earlier

Super Missiles: The beam energy contains the missile energy. When the power beam is charged a greater field is generated this allows even MORE Missile energy to be contained, making the missile MUCH more powerful!

Flamethrower: Only thing I can think of is this: Missile energy is flammable. The beam converts energy into heat then when missile energy is pumped into the weapon it ignites creating the flamethrower.

Wavebuster: This is a tough one... Only thing I can think of is that the missile energy amplifies the Wave Beams usual shock factor, allowing it to deal greater damage, also the buster could be shocking both the enemy AND Samus, but Samus cannon is built to withstand the voltage so it does no harm to her. Any suggestions on this one are welcome.

Ice Spreader: this works similarly to the super missile in that beam energy contains the missile energy. But the beam energy this time is ice cold, the weapon is very cold so when missile energy is pumped into the cannon it freezes also, when fired and hits its target the missile energy explodes, but due to it being frozen instead of exploding it freezing everything in its radius

I said I'd try Missile combos and here I will.
This all follows on from what I said about weapons earlier

[b]Super Missiles[/b]: The beam energy contains the missile energy. When the power beam is charged a greater field is generated this allows even MORE Missile energy to be contained, making the missile MUCH more powerful!

[b]Flamethrower[/b]: Only thing I can think of is this: Missile energy is flammable. The beam converts energy into heat then when missile energy is pumped into the weapon it ignites creating the flamethrower.

[b]Wavebuster[/b]: This is a tough one... Only thing I can think of is that the missile energy amplifies the Wave Beams usual shock factor, allowing it to deal greater damage, also the buster could be shocking both the enemy AND Samus, but Samus cannon is built to withstand the voltage so it does no harm to her. Any suggestions on this one are welcome.

[b]Ice Spreader[/b]: this works similarly to the super missile in that beam energy contains the missile energy. But the beam energy this time is ice cold, the weapon is very cold so when missile energy is pumped into the cannon it freezes also, when fired and hits its target the missile energy explodes, but due to it being frozen instead of exploding it freezing everything in its radius

PessimistByNature

2004-04-01 06:26:36 pm

Hm...for the wave buster, maybe the arm cannon explodes missle energy at the crest and trough of each wave, thus increasing the strength, while also explaining the fast missle decrease.