Samus' Physical Capabilities

[TheAccursedHunter01]

I'm not sure if a topic like this has been posted before on the Metroid Database, but as the title suggests, what exactly is Samus capable of physically? Especially when what Samus can do varies from game to game. For example, when in comparison to her environment in Super Metroid, she seems to fly by everything pretty fast, especially when you get the Speed Booster which can apparently can break the sound barrier even though it seemingly doubles her running speed. However, Samus runs noticeably slower in Zero Mission and Fusion, not to mention the Prime games. I've long forgotten the calculations in Prime 1 of how large Zebes is and how strong it's gravitational pull would be, but that, her running speed and jump height compared to her environment seem to be the only way to know for sure. I've looked around on Google and I haven't found a compelling compilation of fact/measurements online, anybody got anything to add on the subject?

[TheBlackCat]

Well, if we assume that it is true that she can run at supersonic speeds, then she can hit a wall at supersonic speed without sustaining any damage. The armor is irrelevant, the sudden deceleration would turn an ordinary human into jelly smeared against the front inside of the suit. This means she must be essentially immune to blunt-force trauma. She should also be able to fall from orbit without damage (with the varia suit in a planet with an atmosphere, since the heat and pressure from re-entry is nothing compared to the heat and pressure in Norfair).

The gravity on zebes should be roughly similar to that on Earth, judging by its mass. The fact that she is able to jump several times her own height indicates she must have extremely strong legs, and the ease with which she pulls herself up on a ledge one-handed also must mean that her arms and fingers are extremely strong.

Let's assume goes at exactly the speed of sound at sea level, or 340 m/s. Since we don't see her slow down when she hits an object, she has to stop in less than 1/60th of a second. So that would be 1,836,00 N, or about what you would get if someone put a 747 on top of you.

I estimate, from zero mission, without her suit she can jump about 3 times her height. That would be 570 cm. According to this website, the length of her leg should be roughy (190-65)/2.54 + (190-64.26)/3.06 = 90 cm. So she would need to reach her peak velocity in about 88 cm. Based on this website the equation for the force is mgh/L, where m is mass, g is gravity, h is height (of the jump), and L is length (from start to leaving the ground). So this would be about 5,600 N of force. So if I haven't made a mistake with my math, she could lift a bull African elephant with her legs.

With her arms, in about the height of her head she appears to be able to accelerate enough to raise herself up nearly the whole rest of her height. Assuming her head is the average height of about 23 cm, and estimating she probably rises another 2/3 her height, then that would be about 2,400 N per arm, or nearly as much force as she can exert with each leg.

[sockmonkey]

People who write sci-fi and video game narratives in particular tend to be really really bad with big numbers.
They slap big numbers on things to make them sound impressive without any sense of scale, proportion, or what those numbers actually mean in a real-world context.
Even by sci-fi standards 100 kph is blazing fast for someone on foot. That's highway speed. If you've ever been standing there watching the cars go by you know that in the instant they pass you they're flashing by faster than your eyes can clearly see.

Supersonic speed is just... no. Even with the suit providing the power, your knee cartilage would burst into flames from the friction.

Now I have no problem with Samus' chozo DNA giving her two or even three times the strength of a human. They do have almost godlike science after all. However things do need to be kept to a reasonable scale.

[TheBlackCat]

Now I have no problem with Samus' chozo DNA giving her two or even three times the strength of a human. They do have almost godlike science after all. However things do need to be kept to a reasonable scale.

There is a lot of stuff in Metroid that isn't reasonable if we go that route. Super Missiles have the energy output of a small tactical nuclear bomb, yet don't even leave a mark on the walls of the bottle ship. Heck, the metroids themselves pretty much go against everything we know about physics, chemistry, and biology. Samus's suit in Super isn't geometrically possible, either. So if we start second-guessing everything that doesn't seem reasonable based on our understanding of how such stuff should work then we will have to throw out just about everything in the series.

The only way we can actually do such as analysis is if we assume that if they do it, they have found a way to make it work. If we reject something in-game or in the official literature then there needs to be some really, really good in-universe reason. Otherwise we are pretty much just left with a woman running around in some caves with a suit of armor.