Space Pirate

The Space Pirates are a faction of power-hungry brigands and conquerors bent on ruling their galaxy and enslaving all other races. To this end, they are bent on destroying the Galactic Federation and their hated enemy, bounty hunter Samus Aran.

Biology
Though they are generally hunched, non-mammalian bipeds, Space Pirate physiology varies drastically due to their propensity for genetic self-modification. The Pirates encountered on Zebes and Aether resembled arthropods or crustaceans, with thick exoskeletons and long, lobster-like pincers housing their gun barrels. On the other hand, those stationed on Tallon IV, appeared to be reptilian, with three-clawed hands, predatory jaws, and glowing yellow eyes. The ones inhabiting Urtraghus were by far the most unique variation seen so far, with toothy mouths that curve upward in the middle and four pairs of eyes instead of the usual two.

Culture
Despite their name, Space Pirates are actually a highly organized, militaristic society, often relying on powerful individuals like Ridley to command them. Obedience is a strict law in their society, and the punishment for violating it is death. This extreme ruthlessness permeates all aspects of Space Pirate culture; despite being intensely xenophobic, Pirates hold little regard for the lives of their brethren. The lowest members of their stratified hierarchy are often mistreated brutally, either through torture, starvation or mutilation. Ironically, Space Pirates are extremely stringent about possessions— thievery within their race is punished severely.

Space Pirates are intelligent, yet use much of the technology they find or steal to make new weapons. Their culture is much the same, as most of their culture is stolen from other cultures, primarily Earth culture as we have the same general body shape: one head, two legs, two arms, etc.

Military Technology
Much of Space Pirate military technology is experimental. Many of these experiments include Phazon and Metroids, but the Space Pirates have also tried to reverse-engineer the abilities of Samus Aran such as the morphball.

Galvanic Accelerator Cannon
Attached to the beings' right arm, the GACs are fired by raising a single finger into an alcove containing a trigger. They fire small, reddish bolts of energy capable of dealing minimal damage, but they fire very fast and have extremely low recoil. After the events on Tallon IV, the pirates abandoned GACs for QACs, Quantum Assault Cannons.

Quantum Assault Cannons
An upgrade to the GAC which proved too weak to do serious damage to major threats. Little else is known.

Phazon
The Space pirates have based much of their military on the element Phazon. They set up full bases when trace elements are found. It is a highly radioactive mutagen which can increase the threat level of space pirates exponentially. Through these experiments the space pirates have created many abominations of nature. The high death toll of miners and test subjects does not deter the space pirates from this powerful resource. It is revealed in the Space Pirate Logs that some Space Pirates protested Phazon being used in their homeworld.

History
The Space Pirates have long been a rival of the Galactic Federation, named as such due to their brutal raids on Federation colonies and ships. One of their most infamous raids was on the colony of K2-L, where the Space Pirates, under the command of the Space Dragon known as Ridley, massacred the Human colonists to obtain the valuable fuel stores there. The sole survivor of this attack was 3-year-old Samus Aran, who was rescued and adopted by the Chozo, then augmented with their DNA.

Several years later, the Space Pirates invaded the planet Zebes, driving out the local Chozo and seizing their biological weapons; the energy-leeching parasites known as Metroids. This victory was achieved due to the betrayal and defection of the Chozo's biomechanical supercomputre, Mother Brain. Alerted to the invasion and the threat of the Metroids, Samus Aran, now a bounty hunter, was hired by the Federation to intervene. Outfitted in the Chozo-made Power Suit, Samus single-handedly eliminated the Space Pirate presence on Zebes, along with the Metroids, Mother Brain, Kraid, and Ridley, her parents' killer.

Shortly after losing their occupation of Zebes, a Space Pirate frigate, the Orpheon, arrived at the planet Tallon IV, where they discovered the planet had been saturated in a dangerous substance known as Phazon. After learning of Phazon's mutagenic properties and viability as a power source, the Space Pirates began a major mining operation to harvest as much of it as possible. Their experiments resulted in the creation of multiple monstrous creatures, including the Parasite Queen, a rock-golem known as Thardus, and even the transformation of their own soldiers into Elite Pirates. The Space Pirates eventually traced the Phazon back to its source, a meteorite that impacted Tallon IV long before their arrival and perpetually produced Phazon, infusing it into the planet, mutating the native wildlife and eradicating the local Chozo population. The Pirates also discovered an extremely powerful creature within the meteor, one which was evidently guarding it and assimilated some of their weapons technology. They dubbed this monster Metroid Prime, believing it to be a Metroid heavily mutated by Phazon exposure. At some point during this operation, the Orpheon suffered a catastrophic containment breach, when multiple Parasite Queens escaped confinement and ravaged the ship from within, prompting the activation of the onboard distress beacon. Samus recieved this signal and travelled to Tallon IV to investigate. Shortly after fighting one of the escaped Parasite Queens, Samus was forced to abandon ship after the creature fell into the Orpheon's reactor, crippling the ship. On her way out, Samus discovered that Ridley had survived their fight on Zebes, having been cybernetically reconstructed as Meta-Ridley, and pursued him to Tallon IV. During her travels around the planet, Samus exterminated the Pirate forces in their Phendrana Drifts laboratory and their Phazon Mines, as well as several Phazon-enhanced Elite Pirates and their prototype; the Omega Pirate. Atop the meteor itself, Samus fought Ridley once more and defeated him again with the aid of the Chozo's temple defences. With their harvesting operations crippled and the meteor destroyed by Samus shortly afterwards, the Space Pirates were forced to withdraw.

After recieving a transmission from the Alimbic Cluster promising ultimate power, a Space Pirate cyborg known as Weavel competed with several other Bounty Hunters, including Samus, in finding it. As the Bounty Hunters discovered, the message came from Gorea, an ancient and malevolent entity responsible for exterminating the Alimbics. Weavel and the other Bounty Hunters were easily defeated by Gorea, but survived thanks to Samus' triumph over the monster. Weavel returned from the Alimbic Cluster empty-handed.

During a routine patrol, a Federation ship encountered a Space Pirate ship near the planet Aether. The two ships engaged and became stranded on Aether due to global storm caused by the planet's dimensional instability. While the Federation marines were slaughtered by the Ing, the Space Pirates discovered Phazon present on Aether, but in particular abundance in the other dimension known as Dark Aether. The Pirates launched incursions into Dark Aether to harvest the Phazon there, but met violent opposition from the Ing. Due to their mentality of unquestioning obedience, many Pirate soldiers became possessed by the Ing. Later, Samus arrived on Aether to investigate the missing marines, only to end up fighting the Ing on behalf of the Luminoth. Between Samus, the Ing and the theft of their Phazon supply by Metroid Prime, now reborn as Dark Samus, the Space Pirates efforts on Aether were rapidly diminished. After Samus destroyed the Ing and Dark Aether, leaving the Luminoth to rebuild their civilisation, the Space Pirates remained behind to harvest what little Phazon remained.

Unbeknownst to the Space Pirates leaving Aether, Dark Samus had stowed away on their ship. Absorbing the Phazon onboard, she used it to corrupt the Pirates onboard, bending their minds to her will. From there, she led them to Phaaze, a sentient planet and the source of all Phazon. Using her enthralled Space Pirates, she stole an Aurora Unit from the Federation and used it to take control of Phaaze, launching a Phazon-infused meteor known as a Leviathan at Urtraghus, the presumed homeworld of the Space Pirates. As a result, Dark Samus had corrupted and enthralled the Space Pirates, including Ridley. Afterwards, she launched an additional three Leviathans at the planets Norion, Bryyo and Elysia in order to deprive the Federation of a major stronghold, fuel supply and observation post. The Space Pirates launched an invasion of Norion to ensure the meteor's succesful impact, but failed due to the efforts of four bounty hunters, Samus Aran among them. A month later, Samus, now empowered with Phazon, destroyed the Leviathans on Bryyo and Elysia, destroying the Space Pirate garrisons guarding them as well as her fellow Bounty Hunters, who had succumbed to Dark Samus' influence as well. She then led the Federation in a full scale invasion of Urtraghus, destroying the Leviathan there and even defeating a Phazon-enhanced Ridley once again. Afterwards, the Federation decided to eliminate the threat of Phazon at its source. Using a cybernetically-modified Leviathan converted into a biomechanical ship, the Federation fleet invaded Phaaze, engaging a massive Space Pirate fleet guarding the planet. Samus travelled to the planet's surface and destroyed Dark Samus and the corrupted Aurora Unit, killing Phaaze in the process. As Phaaze collapsed, seemingly all Phazon in existence simply vanished. The Space Pirates, having become dependent on it to power their ships and weapons, were crippled by this event and were obliterated as Phaaze exploded.

Despite his apparent demise on Urtraghus, Ridley resurfaced yet again, having regenerated enough of his body to partially discard some of his cybernetics. He travelled to the Metroid homeworld SR-388, seemingly alone, in another attempt to weaponize the parasites. However, Samus had arrived at the planet before him, having been charged by the Federation to exterminate the Metroid species. By the time Ridley arrived, only one Metroid remained, a hatchling that imprinted on Samus, leading to her decision to spare it. Although Ridley almost killed Samus, the hatchling's intervention enabled her to best him yet again and escape the planet.

Ridley, having now regenerated completely and abandoning his cybernetics, followed Samus to a Federation research facility she entrusted with the safety of the Metroid Hatchling. Ridley invaded the station, massacred the personnel onboard and stole the Hatchling. Samus followed him back to Zebes, once again under Space Pirate control. As she searched for the Hatchling, Samus hunted down the Space Pirate leaders and slew them, including Ridley, at last avenging her family on K2-L. She also discovered that Mother Brain had been revived somehow, and upgraded with a monstrous biomechanical body. Although Samus was easily bested, she was saved at the last moment by the Hatchling, which had grown to a massive size due to the Space Pirates' experiments. Although Mother Brain killed the Hatchling, Samus' recovery and enhancement from it enabled her to regain the upper hand, obliterating Mother Brain entirely. Shortly afterwards, Zebes was destroyed completely by Mother Brain's self-destruct system. With the apparent total loss of their leadership, Zebes and the extinction of the Metroids, the threat of the Space Pirates was seemingly vanquished at last.

Aboard the Bottle Ship space station, the Galactic Federation had been cloning the native wildlife of Zebes, including the Metroids, for their own bioweapon programmes. During these experiments, they also created an army of cybernetically enhanced Space Pirates, Metroids modified with a resistance to cold temperatures, an artificial intelligence known as MB (based on Mother Brain) and even a clone of Ridley. Eventually, MB went rogue and took control of the Space Pirate cyborgs, wiping out the facility's personnel. During her investigation of the station, Samus fought the modified Pirates, saw to the eradication of the enhanced Metroids and fought the Ridley clone, although he was later killed by the new Metroid Queen. Eventually, the Federation destroyed MB and the station, along with their experiments and the evidence.

The Space Pirate threat seemingly resurfaced, albeit briefly, when they were encountered by Samus Aran aboard the BSL research station shortly after her recovery from an attack by the X Parasite. However, these Pirates were themselves infected by the parasites by the time Samus encountered them. Even Ridley's remains were stored within the station, but became infected and duplicated by the parasites as well. It remains unclear whether these Pirates attacked the station, or were bought over by the Federation for experimentation. Either way, Samus destroyed the station and the X population on SR-388. Since then, the Space Pirates have seemingly disappeared, the threat they posed diminished.