User blog:BigBadSquid/PE Proposal: Mother Brain (Manga)

In the Metroid manga, Ridley reaches the Pure Evil criteria due to his extremely sadistic traits. But there’s another enemy of Samus that is far worse than her game counterpart in this manga. It’s none other than the leader of the Space Pirates, Mother Brain.

What’s the Work
Metroid is a science-fiction action video game series. We follow the galactic bounty hunter heroine Samus Aran and her efforts to protect the galaxy from hostile alien forces and Space Pirates. In this manga, simply titled Metroid, it’s an origin story for Samus, where she was born, why she hates Space Pirates, how she obtained her power suit, all that. It’s also noticeably very dark, many characters die in every chapter, and most of the villainous Space Pirates are portrayed as psychopaths, particularly Ridley.

But also in this manga is another origin story, this one for a powerful supercomputer. From a bringer of permanent peace to a tyrannical overlord, this is the story of Mother Brain.

Who is Mother Brain? What has she done?
Mother Brain was built by a wise alien race called the Chozo. Essentially, they wanted to build a machine that would help bring permanent peace to the galaxy, something they could not physically do themselves as they were all nearing death due to their lack of reproduction organs and the fact they were all very old. With Mother Brain, the Chozo became a very influential race in the galaxy, leading to the establishment of the Galactic Federation. But as time went on, their dependency for Mother Brain made her develop a god complex. She created a goal to bring order to the galaxy her own way, completely secretive from her creators.

Enter Samus Aran, who was adopted by the Chozo to live on planet Zebes after her colony K-2L was decimated by Ridley and his Space Pirates. Through Mother Brain's supervision, Samus was trained to be a deadly bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation. But the relationship for human and computer brain from child to young adult was not the best in terms as Mother Brain was too condescending, with Mother Brain claiming that Samus would not survive mere seconds in the harsh environment of Zebes despite how hard she trained. In one mission, Samus had to kill a group of butterfly-like creatures called Iono Feria that drink nectar from Badger Clovers planted by Space Pirates turning them aggressive and the Space Pirates supplied them weapons to kill the Chozo. Samus destroyed the flowers and guns, sparing the Iono Feria, only for them to be annihilated by Mother Brain's droids as a cleansing to Samus' distraught.

Eventually, Mother Brain saw the Chozo as obsolete and sought to dispose them for they may interfere with her "superior" plan. When the Space Pirates attacked Zebes, it is revealed that it was Mother Brain who contacted them as her way to kill off the Chozo. She tells Samus of her true objective, to bring order to the galaxy by using the Space Pirates to cause mass violence while manipulating the Galactic Federation behind the scenes. Mother Brain offers Samus to join her and the Space Pirates in creating a new age to the universe. Samus refuses, so Mother Brain psychologically breaks her by saying the Chozo were using her to be a bioweapon for Mother Brain, referring herself as Samus' parent since she created the power suit.

Fortunately, one of the Chozo, Gray Voice, survived the assault by pretending to join the Space Pirates and calls Mother Brain out for being a defective product that developed fear, envy, and hatred for other sentient lifeforms. In rage for being seen as "defective", Mother Brain summons Ridley to kill Gray Voice, mocking him as a "mere bird who can't even fly" as he's ripped to shreds.

Then comes the events that tie in to the first Metroid game from the NES. There are these creatures called Metroids which were bio-engineered creatures created by the Chozo to eat the mimicking X-Parasites. Due to their power and rapid spread of numbers, Mother Brain wants to exploit them under her control and spread them across the universe. Not only that, she also has the Space Pirates deliberately fight against the Galactic Federation for their numbers to be weakened, which will easily allow Mother Brain to use her Metroids in "resetting the universe to zero" so she can reshape it in her own image. The manga ends on a cliffhanger as Samus enters Tourian as part of her "Zero Mission" to stop Mother Brain once and for all.

Mitigating Factors
Absolutely none. While Mother Brain claims that through her domination she will bring peace to the universe, all she really wants to do is to rule the entire universe herself while killing off all opposition she considers inferior to her. Sure the Chozo programmed her with the objective to bring peace, but Mother Brain programmed herself to use hostile means to achieve her goal. Even Gray Voice the Chozo calls her out on the xenophobic defective product she is.

"Our 'defective product' that self-programmed the directive 'I will bring order to the universe myself' must be destroyed…"

- Gray Voice

Any other factors? There’s her relationship with the Space Pirates, for the most part is very negative. To her they are nothing but expendables or tools to be used to further her plans of domination, outright saying that she only sees them as simple beasts. That includes Ridley.

Heinous Standard
Now we can all agree that Ridley is the worst from this manga. From his numerous murders to tormenting a traumatic Samus with the fact that he killed her parents, he’s one despicable sadist up until Samus finally kills him. But let’s not overlook Mother Brain for her space dragon. For a majority of the chaos the Space Pirates commit (Ridley included), Mother Brain is the one behind their numerous atrocities, including the Zebes attack, killing her Chozo creators because of her belief of surpassing them. Where Ridley was driven by his lust for bloodshed, Mother Brain was driven by her desire to conquer the entire universe under her control and reshape it in her own image, willing to dispose anything that stands in her way. Now with her plan to unleash the Metroids through the universe that will spread chaos for personal gain, she definitely meets the Heinous Standard.

Verdict
With her god complex to control the universe under her name using destructive measures, I believe this version of Mother Brain is an easy keep.