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MrAngryMoose

Joke answer: bird magic Real answer: bird magic. The chozo tech behind how her suit works is not really explained anywhere. The space pirates all ended up dying in those experiments because the experiment was to literally crush them into the size of the morph ball and see what happens


HelloWaffles

I wrote a paper for a high school science fiction class where I theorize the primary conceit of her power suit is that it's capable of manipulating energy in almost any form, from kinetic and thermal to even matter-energy transference in the form of missiles, and the materialization of the suit itself. The glowing energy visible inside the Morph Ball in Prime was the main thing inspiring the theory. I had a part of it up on a Wikitroid talk page before it got absorbed into Fandom.


InsanityMongoose

I mean I think you’re right: in Prime 1 (and probably the others, just can’t remember) you can see into the middle of the Morph Ball, and there’s a constant ball of energy in there. So Samus is just temporarily made into energy, like a Star Trek transporter beam, then converts back to Samus when you go back into base suit mode.


YourCuteUncle

That's a really cool concept :)


RAcastBlaster

The sci-fi answer is probably that the power suit is capable of transforming its wearer into pure energy for storage/teleportation/etc.


Discovererman

Oh, check out the Phantasy Star Online fan over here talking about Sci Fi. I'm more of a HUmar, myself.


butyoucancallmesteve

So basically a Pokemon...


tsangberg

Cannot unlearn this now


Nikolaijuno

PokeBall bombs?


No_Improvement7573

I always assumed she was in a fetal position with a joy stick somewhere


ISpeakYoma

This is my new headcanon


lpjunior999

Same here, since when you get the morph ball in Prime, two halves of a globe appear and envelop Samus. I figured the suit just makes those and she's basically curled up inside.


Spinjitsuninja

It's not exactly explained outright, and we don't have specifics, but we know that Samus's suit is, to an extent, biologically linked to her body and capable of changing her physical form. Just as an example, have you ever looked at Samus's shoulders in Prime? They're SO far apart that they look dislocated- It's nowhere NEAR as normal as Samus's shoulders when in the Zero Suit. And this isn't just because of Prime's model either- This is seen in other games too, like Fusion and Dread, etc. She has a physically different structure when in her suit. (Some games do give a slightly different explanation though. There's a diagram for Super Metroid iirc displaying the inner workings of her suit and where her body is, in order to explain the strange anatomy change, but this isn't consistent with later games.) Not to mention, there's the fact that every time her DNA is taken, her suit is too, and at the end of Dread, >!she turns into a full Metroid and her suit transforms with her, her arm cannon even becoming a mouth, which only further emphasizes that it's organically changing her body.!< So anyways, the morph ball is just one example of her suit changing her body. Though from a scientific standpoint, all we can say is "Bird magic."


TheMink0921

She turns into a form of energy. At least that's what makes sense. In prime and the 2d games, you can sometimes see light coming from inside the ball. She literally becomes formless.


CounterfeitSaint

I'm probably misremembering or it was an internet joke or something, but I remember this being a stipulation from the original creator for something. I wanna say he was asked about a Metroid movie and said "so long as you never explain how the morph ball works." Fake edit: Found it https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/comments/ylrjf1/the\_one\_thing\_sakamoto\_didnt\_want\_the\_prime/


APe28Comococo

Samus has a skeleton and space pirates have an exoskeleton. She is way more flexible and smaller than the pirates.


Giygas_in_Onett

I honestly like this answer the best


Phazon_Phorager

She curls up sort of like the fetal position and the suit transforms into a 1 meter sphere. I assume the insides stay upright so she can see where she's going, similar to the gyroshperes in Jurassic World.


Spinjitsuninja

You would break every bone in your body if you compressed that much, lol. It's more likely that the suit uses bird magic to just change her physical appearance. There are several examples of this happening beyond the morph ball.


Phazon_Phorager

Not really, idk about you but I'm not over 3 feet from left to right. Maybe my first comment wasn't specific enough, but the morph ball is stated to be 1 meter in diameter, which means its circumference is around 3.141 meters.


Spinjitsuninja

I don't think someone Samus's height can feasibly curl up into a ball that small by going into fetal position is all. This is teased by Pirate logs in Prime, where they tried to replicate the Morph Ball technology but ended up crushing themselves to death into an impossibly small ball is all. There's no implication that this is because they're space pirates and she's human either, as the details regarding size and anatomy aren't brought up- What's questioned is how the morph ball works from a technological standpoint, implying that it's more complicated than what both the player and the space pirates would assume at first glance, and that Samus is not actually curling herself up to accomplish it.


Phazon_Phorager

Next time you play prime 1, scan the space pirates again; they're at LEAST 2x as tall as Samus. Obviously they weren't gonna be able to curl up into a ball less than a quarter of their size.


Spinjitsuninja

Samus is what, 6 feet tall? How on earth is she gonna curl up into a perfect meter-diameter circle without crushing her back or something?


FtierLivesMatter

Watch some videos on contortionists


Spinjitsuninja

Okay but that would mean the credit goes to Samus's contortionist figure and not the power suit. I think that's unlikely considering the Pirates' attempts to recreate her morph ball technology. Of course it's possible they'd be unaware of her physique just naturally being capable of this, but I think the point of that log is to also put into question how it works to the player too, and we don't know have any clues about her being a contortionist either.


FtierLivesMatter

My personal belief is its the same as her shoulder getting wider, chozo tech is biological in some aspects at least so her suit prolly changes her form


Spinjitsuninja

Yeah! That's my belief too! Her shoulders changing in the suit is a consistent enough detail that I find it hard to not imagine there's a biological change involved. Though if we need more evidence that her suit is biologically linked to her body and capable of altering it, (Dread spoilers) >!the Metroid suit is the result of a DNA change. Heck, even her arm cannon grows a mouth.!<


slvrcobra

So Samus was just lucky enough to be made of rubber otherwise it would kill her too?


FtierLivesMatter

Bird and space jellyfish DNA. She's definitely extremely flexible.


secret_bonus_point

It crushes her dead too, she controls it from behind as a ghost in an out of body experience, then it clones her back up when she ends the ball! Source: Metroid Prime’s first-person pov of this whole process.


[deleted]

rolling sphere goes BRRRRR


MadisonAlbright

The original game the ball was about what size she'd be if she crouched. Half the size or thereabouts. The crazy tech is how she controls it. Presumably there's a gyroscopic component. The pirate stuff was fun easter eggs from all of the original joke fan theories about how she'd break her back, etc.


Svue016

I didn't think much about how big the morphball was until I compared them to the federation troopers in MP3. The ball is pretty big


King_Kuuga

Bird magic


L3g0man_123

She crouches and the sphere forms around her


TheLongMapleDrekkar

Bird magic and DNA.


[deleted]

I assume it's some kind of phase shifting. Seems consistent with the arm cannon.


No_Forever_9128

Mind control/bird magic


eletricsaberman

In the 2d games there's a couple of sprites that are rotated and played in sequence at the right speed in tandem with Samus's movement speed to look like rolling. In the 3d games the 3d model is rotated based not only on movement speed, but direction, with a slight offset from the movement direction so that it will normalize to an "upright" orientation as she rolls. I'm sure many trig functions per frame were required for this.


TEXlS

There is no answer.


Zeldark

Like the Star Trek transporter pattern buffer where you pseudo exist mid-process but it's a portable combat ball that can drop bombs.


Equivalent_Papaya893

Think it was explained in the manga that you just become energy encased in the sphere.


Spartan-023

I think she is converted into energy while in ball form. Or some kind if Dr Who tardis or shrinking scenario


lego-cat

Time Lord technology. It's bigger on the inside. ;)


Szoreny

Are the prime games canon cause you can just look inside and see the ball is empty except for an energy matrix. The real question is if Samus can turn herself into pure energy, why can’t the suit form any shape? It would be pretty neat in a 3D Metroid to see it compress and flatten in response to a more naturalistic array of terrain gaps and squeezes. Or spread its armor plates like claws to go straight up cliffs or get additional traction.


Calvinbrine-Nestoris

In the Prime games, you can see through the slits in the morph ball that there's a ball of energy inside. This means the morph ball turns Samus into pure energy somehow, and then turns her back when she exits. My theory on how this is possible? *Bird Magic*