Deciphering the Chozo Archives - Metroid Dread

if the title of this video wants it enough i'll take this opportunity to throw in the obligatory spoiler warning given the nature of the archives and what they entail it would be almost impossible for me to talk about them without going over the game's story so if you haven't already finished this masterpiece i suggest you go and complete it for yourself first and then come back to this video later last thing i want to do is ruin some of the awesome surprises in store in this game with that said i hope you enjoyed the video okay so i've been meaning to ask could you explain these mysterious archives to me please [Music] time okay i think i got it but just to be safe how about you explain this to me like if i were a five-year-old who didn't speak bird magic well here we are after what still seems like a dream of sorts we finally got a chance to play the highly anticipated and rumored metroid dread and i don't think i have to say that it's hands down probably one of the best in the series or even the genre i might say a part of me still thinks that one of these days i'll wake up in a cold sweat to find that dread wasn't actually a thing it's just still hard for me to process that this game came out of nowhere and gave us a satisfying closure to the classic 2d storyline that actually continues on that mysterious image from the jozo memories and just like samus returns dred still gave us some hints to the past of planet zdr with the new chozo archives which are unlocked after you collect 100 of the items on each one of the areas and while these might seem like just random images of first glance i think that there could perhaps be a story of sorts that connects them into a single narrative but i have to mention a small disclaimer before i jump into the analysis and it's to clarify that this is just merely a theory i made on the subject and had some input from a few members on my discord server to help me iron out a few details this is by no means the end-all be-all story behind these archives it's just a theory at the end of the day and if at some point in the future we find a better explanation for them i'll come back to do an update on this video but i think you guys may be pleased with the narrative we made for the time being [Music] first of all i want to establish that a difference from the chosen memories and samus returns these archives may not be in chronological order because of a specific event that we see in archive 6 which is what we kind of use as a guide to establish a timeline of the events so this is the order we came up with for the narrative of the archives we start with archive 5 where we see what seems to be a ritual or test by the mock in chozo where they're tasked with slaying or taming a corpus with less equipment the idea of this being a test of sorts comes from the fact that the main chozo is not fully armored and is surrounded by other soldiers probably there to either witness the test or make sure that nothing goes wrong on archive 2 we see the mocking trying to contain or perhaps even control a crate to maybe use as a bioweapon who probably isn't related to the boss from super metroid considering that these events take place before or during the chosen memories and according to quiet ropes recollection the one we know should still be in sevis but either way it's of no major importance to our story as we can see the operation isn't going quite as planned and perhaps came even at the cost of a couple of troops which may have not pleased ravenbeak leading us to archive 4 where we see what is probably an execution of those responsible for this failure or maybe even some members who disagree with his plan and thus we can see this as an act of ravenbeak purging the weak after all in his eyes power is everything which brings us to archive 8 where we observe the mocking getting ready to travel away from their home world to answer a call for help from another group of chozo and thus we see the armada starting to assemble and head out aboard ships to travel across the stars with perhaps ravenbeak witnessing the event from the shadows and here is where the chosen memories come into place as the mocking arrive on sr-38 to help the touha seal away both ex-parasites and the uncontrollable metroids so they can't pose a threat to them and so when the dust settles the toha leaders are glad to agree to ravenbeak and his army who came to the rescue that is of course until the mocking leader learned that the toha intended to eradicate both creatures by destroying the planet since they went out of control and from this conflict ravenbeak executes the scientists who opposed his ideals sparing only quiet robe in the process for he wanted to use the metrics as bio weapons after learning about their abilities from here the chosen returned to zdr to make preparations to properly be able to capture the metroids but when they returned ravenbeak ran into an unforeseen problem which is shared in archive 6. here we see what choir robe had told us that in their return to their homeworld one of the soldier was actually an x in disguise and after hearing the horrors of their capabilities and the fact that it was almost impossible to distinguish the infected ravenbeak sets a quarantine in ellen which is then barricaded as the soldiers tried to fight off the parasites but this ended up sealing the fate for anyone who was trapped inside knowing he wouldn't be able to control the parasites ravenbeak decides to contain the spread for the time being until he was able to return with the metroids in order to properly extinguish them as you can probably tell this is the main reason we decided that the previous archives i had mentioned had to take place some time before this one since we see the chosen soldiers with their normal red eyes meaning they most likely have not gone to sr-38 and get exposed to the x-parasites which the game identifies with their whole of white eyes meaning there was still no quarantine and it's also why we don't see any soldier remains outside of elon from here we move to archive 3 that could take place during the same time as 6 or some time after it where we see quiet rover working on what seems to be experiment c57 the boss that you later fighting kataris now the purpose of this research is still unclear but we like to believe this was probably choir bro trying to find a possible solution to control the evolved metroids for when they chose a return to their planet but another personal theory of mine is that he could perhaps been trying to find another way to fight the x parasites or even undo their damage which is a topic i would rather save for another video where i can discuss this idea in more detail this then brings us to the point where ravenbeak returned to sr-38 sometime during the events of super metroid or fusion only to find the caverns open and all the metroids exterminated by the hands of samus and thus did the chosen's plan lay in ruin or at least it seems so until he learned about what happened to the planet later on considering the great threat that the metroids posed to the galaxy and that the federation agreed on their extermination then it's easy to believe that this news would spread across the galaxy so wouldn't be too far-fetched to assume that even someone like ravenbeak could catch wind of the situation in seeing how his plans ultimately resided on the planet it would make sense that he kept an eye on it until its ultimate destruction and the end of fusion which probably gave the mocking the information he needed to know that samus had something that made her resistant to the parasites and here is where the chozo sends the mysterious footage of the x to lure samus onto his planet but instead he would find seven robots arriving the emmy sent by the federation to confirm and exterminate the parasites on site the ultimate safety measure so they could fight them without risking another incident like the one on the bsl station and on having to rely on samus for every encounter which brings us to archive 1 where it's revealed that ravenbeak was the one responsible for the damage on the first emmy you encounter on the planet perhaps displeased by the robots he decides to test their strength finding them capable of resisting heavy damage considering this unit was still active once you arrived on zdr and thus wonders if there could be another use for them in archive 7 we see the two chosen studying the robot raven beak knows that if the enemies disappeared it would force samus to come to the planet and investigate and at the same time he could use them as tools to hunt her down and get the metric dna from her body a fact that has quietrope extremely concerned at the same time i like to imagine that the enemies must have a sample of samus's dna in order to hunt down the x this thought mostly comes from the opening of the game where we see the breakdown of the robots with a strand of dna next to it which kind of matches with samus infected dna seen earlier in the intro which we also then see on archive 7 when the chozo are dissecting the enemy so it's perhaps thanks to this how ravenbeak was able to reprogram the units to specifically hunt her down and as you can probably tell this leads us straight into the game's story with the emmys gone and samus being the only one capable of fighting the x parasites she descends into planet zdr to find herself facing her biggest talent yet thanks to the game we know that ravenbeak's initial plan was more straightforward defeat samus and take her body to an emmy to get the dna and be able to make his army with quiet rope however seeing that the bounty hunter was awakening to some inner powers got his attention and so he allowed her to live so she could grow stronger and either way he would see a prophet out of this if sam is perished he could just extract her dna but if she survived and grew stronger he could get an army more powerful than imagine all he needed to do is to wait for samus to grow and develop her abilities in time which is why perhaps he released the x from ellen to force her dna to mutate just like the metroids on sr-388 or i guess it's because it awakened to his mocking presence at least according to this conversation towards the end of the game that kind of confuses me but i'll address this in a future video sadly unlike samus returns there is no secret archive to be found since collecting a hundred percent just unlocks a special image to commemorate all the 2d games which is not bad all things considered since sakamoto mentioned he would like to start something new with the series moving forward so it makes sense not to have a cliffhanger here so that they could focus more on the closure of the metroid saga and so they don't have to commit to any ideas this early on there is a lot more i could discuss considering the archives but this is where i wanted to leave it for the time being since i have enough thoughts to make a separate video altogether going over the details in dread that give us more lore on previous games and even solving some of its mysteries while this story isn't a definitive explanation to the narrative of these archives since they're a bit more abstract when compared to the chosen memories hopefully this story can help bring some sense into these images or even offer a starting point for others to come up with their own interpretations that can help us reach a more concrete conclusion of these events either way i am more than happy with what the archive showed us giving us some glimpses into the backstory of zdr and showing us some more conflicts within the chozo that really got my imagination going and truly makes me appreciate more the details in the scenery that in a way also continues some of the visual storytelling and as i've said in the past i am a firm believer that not having all the answers to our questions can make for some equally interesting storytelling because it leaves the room open for our imagination to come up with the solutions that in a way helps bring the community together and makes us come back to the game months or even years after we complete it [Music] you

Channel: The Orpheon

Views: 52,696

Keywords: Metroid, Samus, Chozo, Orpheon, Crocomire, Nintendo, Ridley, Luminoth, Archives, mysteries, lore, theory, backstory, dread, quiet robe, raven beak, emmi, switch, samus returns, 3ds, memories, kraid, soldiers, corpius, x parasites, elun, 100%, ending, reward, story, expained, ZDR, Mysteries, plan, dna, bosses, unlock, sequence break, animation, fusion, super, am2r

Id: 3rEMFfUQ32g

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021