TEEN: A Brief History of the Galactic Federation and Its Influence on the Cosmos (METROID) (Not Pokemon)

[UselessBytes]

So, this is a little project I've been working on for a while and figured I'd post in increments here. It's really just my ramblings about a cohesive backstory for the human race and the Galactic Federation as a whole, and I use it in most of my Metroid fics, so here it is, if Metroid happens to be your cup of tea.


Index
Foreword
Section 1 - The Human Race
Section 2 - The Galactic Federation and the Qarr-tokk
Section 3 - The Space Pirates
Section 4 - Ridley
Section 5 - Bounty Hunters
Section 6 - Black Projects
Section 7 - The Command Council
Section 8 - The Supreme Commander
Section 9 - The Galactic Military
Section 10 - The Galactic Coordinate System

A Brief History of the Galactic Federation and its Influence on the Cosmos


Callum Rhodes

Retired Galactic Federation Marine

Chief Historian of the Trondis School for Intergalactic Education


The Galactic Federation is a household name throughout the galaxy in this day and age regardless of species, and for good reason, too. There is no doubt that any credit for the current standard of living that so many species across this galaxy of ours share belongs to the organization known as the Galactic Federation. While we are by no means in an era of peace, we most certainly are prosperous as not only individual species, but as a galaxy as a whole. We’ve progressed further than we have in many, many years in terms of technology, culture, and education. Of course, there are bits and pieces of history that the Galactic Federation would very much like to sweep under the rug. To be perfectly honest, I am completely okay with that as long as there is someone who still does remember them, just in case anybody asks. That’s why I am writing this.

As I said previously that there are certain events that the Federation wishes to be forgotten, and they have no doubt paid many bribes throughout the galaxy to ensure that these facts stay buried. In fact, even at this esteemed college at which I am employed keeps select information under lock and key at the request of the Galactic Federation. However, I’ve been granted permission to write this history of mine, and they have offered me several million galactic credits to make sure it is never published outside of my place of work. Of course, I accepted.


The Human Race


If you ask any professor of history, outside of a select few, they would probably tell you that the human race originated on a small planet near the center of the galaxy, and that it fell out of orbit as they abandoned it and collided with another planet, destroying them both. This, of course, is false. In my studies I’ve come to discover that the human race’s home planet is a lonely little rock in a secluded corner of the galaxy. It was called “Earth”. Of course if you were to travel to the planet today you would no doubt find a bubbling, radioactive cess pool with no more than the most basic forms of life.

From what I can find, Earth wasn’t always like this. Earth had once been a fantastically beautiful planet. Gorgeous oceans, massive forests, vast plains; everything that we would consider rare and natural beauty in this era. Of course, being the greedy humans we are, we tore down the forests, razed the plains, and polluted the oceans not long before we abandoned the planet. We wanted more room to build our cities and factories, and thought nothing of taking it without any regard for the planet that housed us.

Some time in the late 1800s, (I’m not exactly sure when, as most of the documents tend to lack an exact date in any form that we use today) the human race had its first encounter with a species that hadn’t originated on their home planet. It is unclear what race this was, as no definitive description of them was ever listed in any of the documents I have access to.

The race in question didn’t appear to be hostile as the humans are the ones who struck first, seemingly out of fear. Using various atomic and thermonuclear weapons, they decimated the poor race and almost completely destroyed their entire fleet what appear to be colonist transports, going by the given description. Of course, it was inevitable that as soon as this starborne “threat” was defeated, the humans went back to what they did best at the time, fighting each other.

However, there was a radicalist group that had managed to repair one of the crashed colonist transports and load it with various thermonuclear bombs. They launched into space and threatened to destroy the whole of humanity unless their demands were met.

In the end, the sheer stubbornness the humans possessed paid off. In the year 1939, (This is one of the few dates that is legibly recorded) the radicalist group carried out their threats and unleashed a wave of death upon humanity. It was an extinction level event. The majority of the planet was scorched with a radioactive flame, and it is difficult to fathom how many billions of lives were snuffed out during the event. What these terrorists did not know, however, is that there had been another colonist transport, repaired and maintained by a confederation of nations known as the United Nations, or U.N. This colonist ship attempted to escape the planet with its cargo of 40,000+ human beings, but it was spotted by the terrorists. They attempted to fire on the ship with a thermonuclear missile, however there was a misfire and the missile detonated onboard, sending the remains of the ship and its remaining cargo of weaponry crashing down to the planet’s surface, decimating it further.

The colonist transport traveled for several years before coming across a seemingly uninhabited planet in the closest solar system. Of course, with their somewhat primitive technology, they should have died long before they even managed to escape their own solar system, but they managed to repair the FTL travel drive, (Faster Than Light travel drives are more commonly known as starwarp drives.) and subsequently made their way into the era of space exploration. The planet they settled on is still around, although most humans moved on to settle other planets once they discovered an underground city inhabited by a completely unknown (To them) species several years after settling there. The subterranean species was a peaceful society, but most humans did not wish to share a planet at the time. They departed aboard the same ship on which they had arrived.

They traveled the cosmos for several years more, meeting several other species and even establishing colonies on several planets. One could call it an era of exploration and enlightenment, but I think it was more about self-discovery. Humans learned more about themselves during this time than they did any of the planets they visited.

It wasn’t a peaceful adventure, though. Many humans, both those born on Earth and those born in the stars, perished at the hands of a hostile race known as the Qarr-tokk. The Qarr-tokk were infamously vicious, and were rather cliché in their goal of conquering the galaxy in its entirety.

In the end, humanity grew tired of constantly defending their ships (Which at this point they had reverse engineered from the original colonist transport some years prior) from the Qarr-tokk attackers for years on end, and decided to form an alliance with some of the other species they had encountered, most of whom were also under constant attack from the Qarr-tokk. Together, the humans and two other races, the Tetralytes and the Caborynes, formed a military organization. It was the year 2003, and the Galactic Federation was born. Each race adopted their own colors for official dress and combat equipment. Humans chose a deep navy blue, Tetralytes took to a dull yellow, and Caborynes selected an earthen brown.

 

[UselessBytes]

The Galactic Federation and the Qarr-tokk


It is at this point where the most history books start: the origin of the Galactic Federation and the start of the first galactic war humanity ever waged. It was a bloody war, lasting until late 2012 when the Qarr-tokk Monarch was slain in a raid on their home planet. Of course, there was much more to the war than this single raid.

The humans learned early on that their thermonuclear arsenal would be worth little to nothing in this war, as the Qarr-tokk had already surpassed such weaponry and advanced to much more controlled tools of killing. It was clear from the very start that the Galactic Federation was losing the war. By the year 2006, the Galactic Federation was weak and crippled and, for the second time in less than a century, the human race was brought to the very edge of extinction.

Not counting the various colonies, the remaining humans in the universe at that point was less than 50,000. (The colonies aren’t included due to no solid estimate of their numbers existing, however it is likely that the population of all combined sixteen human colonies at the time was somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000. It is a pitiful number, but the lifespan of the average human on the planets the colonies were attempting to adapt to was much shorter than normal. In fact, only three of the sixteen colonies survived to fully spread across their chosen planet.)

The Galactic Federation was on the verge of collapse and one final assault from the Qarr-tokk would have no doubt vanquished them. However, due to the same stubbornness that helped the original humans flee from their dying home planet, they found yet another last minute solution to the impending extinction.

A scouting ship discovered a planet on the outer reaches of explored space, and landed in hope of finding a precious mixture of natural substances that has since been dubbed “fuel gel” to replenish their fuel supplies. What they found instead was the key to winning the war.

The acid rain that bombarded the planet’s surface disabled their ship as they landed, and they were forced into the vast network of caverns that existed underneath the planet’s surface. It was there they encountered a race that identified themselves as the Chozo, and the planet as Zebes. They were a primarily pacifist race, but they sympathized with the Galactic Federation and taught the Federation’s scientists and engineers how to create mechanized combat suits and advanced energy based weaponry to defend themselves. In turn the Galactic Federation offered the Chozo a place in their ranks, but they declined, preferring to stay, for the most part, isolated and peaceful.

These weapons turned the tide of the war, and the Galactic Federation drove back the Qarr-tokk, eventually defeating them and forcing them into a treaty in late 2012. They were not offered a position in the Galactic Federation and are still confined to their home solar system by peacekeeping forces to this day. As of now, much of the cosmos still consider them savages, and looks down on them as a lesser species.

What isn’t recorded is the actions of the soldiers during this period in the war. They were needlessly brutal, slaying everyone they came across. Whether it was out of fear or out of some giddy sense of revenge, I do not know. However, what I do know is that the Qarr-tokk women possess a similar enough reproductive system to us to bear children of a human male. And of course, you probably know what that means. There were countless Qarr-tokk-human hybrids born of rape. These hybrids were shunned not only by the Qarr-tokk people, but by the humans as well. They were very, very alone.

Of course the other two races in the Galactic Federation at the time participated as well, though the Qarr-tokk women couldn’t bear their children. This horrid crime was so frequent that a saying arose among the Qarr-tokk people that roughly translates to, “If there’s a suit of armor in your doorway, you’d better hope it isn’t blue.”

Of course these horrendous acts were all hidden away and never spoken of again, as the winner tends to write the history books.

 

[UselessBytes]

The Space Pirates


While there have been other, lesser threats to humanity since the close of the war with the Qarr-tokks, none are quite as important or as notable as the Space Pirates. The Space Pirates are an organization composed of several races previously under the control of Mother Brain, although their leadership must have shifted to someone else as they are still active despite a Federation employed bounty hunter defeating their AI Commander, Mother Brain, twice within a span of five years. (Quite an embarrassing feat, if I do say so myself.)

The Space Pirates aren’t quite as active and ferocious as they once were, but they’re still the face of criminal activity in the galaxy. They run smuggling rings, oversee drug trafficking, do mercenary work for various dubious companies, organize attacks and raids on Federation fleets, and run the largest black market in the galaxy. Of course their most notable activities are various projects involving weaponizing various highly illegal organisms and substances such as the highly corrosive Phazon, and the parasitic lifeform known as Metroids. Of course, their overall goal is conquering the known universe.

While there are indeed several races amongst the ranks of the Space Pirates, the ones that had adapted to the caverns of their now destroyed base Zebes took to calling themselves Zebesians. Of course, this wasn’t their only base. They also had bases in locations such as the planets of Aether, Tallon IV, Urtraghia, Bryyo, kintsugi, Twin Tabula, and Vho, alongside various research stations in orbit around Tallon IV, Urtraghia, and Alinos. Ironically, most of these bases were infiltrated and destroyed by the very same Federation employed bounty hunter that destroyed their base on Zebes.

Of course they are sure to have many more outposts and installations that we haven’t discovered yet, and I have no doubt that when we do, the Galactic Federation will call upon the ever-familiar bounty hunter to rout them.


Ridley


Space Dragons were a popular myth among both adults and children before the emergence of the Space Pirates, and for good reason. Legends from the early years of species far older than us humans speak of them as creatures akin to God himself, bringing down fiery wrath on any who dare oppose them.

Aside from one singular individual, there have been no space dragons found alive. In fact, the only traces of the Space Dragons we have discovered are skeletons and husks.

The number one organism on the Galactic Federation’s wanted list is the only Space Dragon ever seen alive, fearfully known as “Ridley”. He is a high ranking commander within the Space Pirate organization and has the blood of countless citizens and Galactic Federation personnel on his hands.

Of course, being a member of the Space Dragon race, he possesses unimaginable strength and an incredibly tough hide, making him an unstoppable force of destruction. In fact, the only time anyone has harmed Ridley beyond minor scratches is during one of his many skirmishes with the aforementioned bounty hunter.

Seeing as Ridley is so unstoppable, it is a blessing he rarely joins the front lines of the Space Pirate forces. In fact, Ridley hasn’t even been seen in several years, not since the destruction of Zebes. Some say that he was finally slain in the planet’s collapse, although it is highly likely that he escaped the planet some time before its destruction.


Bounty Hunters


I’ve already mentioned one specific bounty hunter several times, but they are far from the only bounty hunter that the Galactic Federation has ever turned to. It’s estimated that roughly fifteen percent of the credits earned by individuals in the galaxy each year goes to bounty hunters. It isn’t an easy profession, but it is most definitely a profitable one.

The Galactic Federation employs bounty hunters for jobs that they deem unfit for their soldiers. Most of the time, these tend to be infiltration or search and destroy affairs. They pay well, and it keeps bounty hunters from turning to shadier employers, so no one tends to complain. There have been various debates in the past on the morality of this hired help, but in the end we are all safer due to their efforts. I highly doubt anyone but the Space Pirates would be truly happy to see them go.

 

[UselessBytes]

Black Projects


The Galactic Federation, as I have said previously, isn’t and never has been the most honest organization. From the rape and slaughter of countless members of a now-dying race, to their much newer secrets, which have been dubbed “black projects”, they’ve always had their hands dirty with something.

These projects range from tame to extreme, whether it be research in genetic modification, or the two separate Metroid breeding programs I’ve managed to find out about through various sources. They are all things that the general populous of the galaxy would consider inhumane or morally wrong, but I believe the Federation does have good intentions in starting these black projects. Most of the time signs seem to point to defending the galaxy, as most of these black projects, namely one including the exposure of Galactic Federation Marines to pure Phazon during a period of constant Space Pirate attacks, (It is worth mentioning that most possible side effects of this project, namely a particularly nasty neural disease known as Phazon Madness, were eliminated when the Federation’s favorite bounty hunter destroyed the source of the parasitic chemical, triggering a chain reaction that caused all Phazon in the known galaxy to dissolve into nothingness.) tend to come about in times of conflict. It is very possible that the Galactic Federation and its commanding figures only approved these projects because they deemed them to be absolutely necessary.

Of course, there are some projects that were carried out with less than desirable reasoning, such as a project known as “Metroid Warriors”. Project: Metroid Warriors was an attempt to recreate the Zebesians, Metroids, Ridley, and even a Mother Brain-like organism to use as a deadly and efficient fighting force. In the end this plan never came to fruition, and this account may very well be the only written document to ever mention it.

Another, more well known black project was the Metroid Breeding program aboard the Biologic Space Laboratories Research Station. In fact, this project led to the re-emerging Space Pirates obtaining Metroid DNA from the wreckage of the Space Station, soiling the public’s view of the Federation’s science department even more than it already was.


The Command Council


While the Command Council was originally a war council, it developed into a senate-like organization as the Galactic Federation developed from a solely militarial entity into one of both war and politics. There are representatives for almost every known species, and the number of members is so large that one can’t really call it a council.

This massive group of representatives helps to make and pass laws that encompass the galaxy in its entirety. Of course, having just over 3,000 delegates means that even passing a singular law can take many months. Yet when they do manage to cooperate, what they accomplish tends to satisfy most everyone who cared about whatever the topic of discussion was.

Seeing as cultural and racial differences exist, almost every race and planet has their own governing and lawmaking system. For the most part, you are only under the jurisdiction of these governments so long as you remain planetside, and their rules come second to galactic law.


The Supreme Commander


The Supreme Commander of the Galactic Federation is supreme only in title. In an effort to keep the central power out of the hands of one specific race, the Supreme Commander has no jurisdiction when it comes to anything other than acting upon the council’s decisions. He or she is effectively a figurehead who signs their name on whatever the council tells them to. Despite this, the Supreme Commander is seen as an influential and desirable role throughout the cosmos.

The Supreme Commander is elected by the Command Council once every five years, and is usually selected due to significant attributes or acts, such as “outstanding valor and courage”, “courageous defense of the galaxy”, or some other equally picturesque reason. There are some unspoken rules to the process, and while they are not official, they are followed as accurately as those that are. For example, it is common knowledge that the Supreme Commander will not hail from the same species two terms in a row.

Ever since the first Supreme Commander was elected in 2023, there have been fourteen Supreme Commanders. Five have been human, three have been Tetralytes, two have been Caborynes, and four have been of various other species.

 

[UselessBytes]

The Galactic Military



The Galactic Military is made up of two main organizations: The Galactic Army and the Galactic Navy. Both of these groups have their own various subsections, but every soldier employed by them belongs to one or the other in the end.

The Galactic Army is responsible for most (If not all) grounded military operations. This includes any grounded wars and conflicts that the Federation deems significant enough to participate in, as well as lending support to smaller forces combatting Space Pirate oppression.

The Galactic Navy, on the other hand, is responsible for all Not In Orbit military operations. (NIO operations for short.) This can include anything ranging from full scale galactic wars, (An event that has not occurred in many years.) to minor skirmishes over various things, such as smuggling and illegal trafficking.

Of course there are many more intricacies within the Galactic Military, but seeing as they, along with other details not covered in this report, are already public knowledge, there is no need to go over them.


The Galactic Coordinate System



As vast as the universe is, there had to be some reliable way to know where you are and where you’re going. Thus, in the year 2019, the Galactic Coordinate System was made official. The military had been using it for some time before this, but it was at this point it was popularized with the public.

The galaxy is divided into four sections, or sectors. These four sectors are then further divided into 676 squares, each identified with a letter and a number. These subsectors work on a grid system, with x and y axes that each stretch from one to one thousand.

Of course, there is a z axis, seeing as space is not two dimensional. This number is based on their relative location in relation to the center of the galaxy. Planets below the galaxy’s center receive a negative coordinate, while planets above it are marked with a positive. In the case that a planet is level with the galaxy’s center, it receives a coordinate of zero. All these coordinates are compiled in a string of numbers and letters which follows the model of Sector-Subsector-X-Y-Z. The subsector identifier is listed as one item, consisting of the row and column together.

For example, if I wished to know the coordinates of planet Norion, which is located in the fifty-seventh subsector of the South Eastern Sector, it would be SE-C5-27-768-784. The system is complex at times, but it is efficient and accurate.

 

[UselessBytes]

Hoo boy, it's been a while since I updated this, and seeing it nominated for an award made me realize, "Oh crap I haven't updated it in forever." I have a couple updates ready for it, so I'll put those up soon enough.

 

[AetherX]

Here from the awards. This one was tricky to judge due to what it is, but here are my thoughts anyway.

Giving worldbuilding details through an in universe perspective is a fun concept that I don't see a lot of people doing with fanfiction. I guess it just requires too much effort. In this case it turns what amounts to some story notes into something that's actually an enjoyable read. I've played a few Metroid games, but I'm not terribly familiar with the lore (particularly because I never played Zero Mission or Fusion, which is I think where the majority of worldbuilding stuff happens). Having a relatively comprehensive history like this really helps to set up and fill out the geopolitical (astropolitical?) setting, but that only really matters when there's a story to accompany it.

From what I do know about Metroid, most of the events of the games are touched on, helping to weave together the official canon and this fan-verse. I appreciate the breadth of scope from small details like the species that make up the Federation and the black projects to the wider reaching concepts like the founding and administration of the Federation. Some of the selection of topics feel rather random, but I assume that's because they are the topics that are relevant to your other works. For this reason, I hope that you continue to add to it.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Also an awards review:

It was a smooth read. I didn't find myself stumbling on awkward sentences, didn't notice any missing or misplaced words. The sentence structure is informal, quite fitting for a first person written report by a character from within the story. I enjoyed it.

The details are a mixed bag. Some of the sections are shorter than I would have liked to see. They held my interest... and then they were concluded before I felt like they should have. That said, the sections are quite cohesive and stick together to form something coherent, all centered around a core idea. Unlike other information anthologies I've read, this one doesn't waver all that much. It doesn't branch off into unrelated information that has no relevance to anything else. I like that.

Despite its short length, a detailed picture of the galactic federation is painted, and painted quite well. I'm loving the references to the original NES game and its sequel on the SNES, and later on the events of Metroid Prime. They're all described accurately (as I remember them, at least), and they all fit together quite well. It's very clear that you're aware of the finer details of the franchise and you're sticking to them, rather than striking out on your own or ignoring entire segments of the lore, like fanfiction very often tends to do (extremely guilty of that myself!).

That said, I'm not strictly versed on Metroid lore as much as I'd like to be; One thing that threw me for a loop was seeing years and dates that don't specifically match up to history as we know it. I'll trust that those are official numbers and that this is just some sort of alternate reality.

I think you've done great work here, for what this entry is. With how well you treated the lore here, I'll be looking forward to diving into Hunter^2.

 

[lucarioknight56]

I remember reading this awhile back, but never really tried to review it. But now that the Review League has happened, and that I completed the Metroid Prime Trilogy (lovely games by the way, I have to replay them), I figured I might as well review this oddity among stories.

Let's start with the plus-side. I really like it when you go into detail about the history of the Galactic Federation, such as in Chapters 1 & 2. Both were a good read, since many aspects of the Metroid Universe have never really been explained within the games! And the informal style of the sentences makes this feel like this is an actual person within the universe is writing it, not just an omniscient narrator we see every time. The grammar and spelling is correct as far as I know, and would certainly make a nice addition to any full-scale story.

Now on to the minus-side. To be frank, this isn’t much of a story, but rather a history, as the title implies. One could read this and say ‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ but what do they get? Given the rather unusual nature of this, it can be forgiven, but at the same time, I’d like to see this interwoven into a tale rather than set aside. That’s what I tried to do in my own fiction, PMD: The Forgotten Isles, but I don’t know how well it worked out. It’s worth a shot, as long as you don’t detract from the narrative.

Overall, I think this is a solid addition to the Metroid Universe, even if this wouldn’t count as a true story in my book. I’ll consider reading Hunter^2, as thought by Flaze, since I notice that you invented that as well. I’ll keep an eye out for whatever else you may write!