How was Zebes overlooked before Super Metroid?

[1upD]

Why would the Federation monitor Zebes? They've got a lot of space to monitor already. According to what they know, the pirates on Zebes and Mother Brain have been completely wiped out. Think about it; what reason would the pirates have for resettling Zebes? The Federation probably doesn't know they can just clone a new Mother Brain, and they're all dead anyway. There's no metroids on Zebes, there's no Mother Brain on Zebes, and according to what Samus told them there's no survivors left on Zebes.

If I had to guess, after Samus destroyed the pirate base (and flagship) the Federation turned their attention to finding the other Pirate bases and Urtraghus. The patrols like the one in Prime 2 could even be defending the Federation from other threats like the Kriken.

EDIT: Conspiracy theory time! The Ringleaders wanted the Pirate base on Zebes to 'grow back' so that Samus would need to return there. This time, they'd put her through decontamination immediately when she got back and use samples from her suit to clone all of the creatures she fought on Zebes. They'd use cybernetics on the clones and try to 'train' them to create a semi-automated special forces unit that could take over for the Federation police.

[HYRUL3]

That is super-conspiratorial, but otherwise not bad at all.

And I fully agree- its not the planet they'd be focused on, but the Pirates. There's an infinite amount of planets, moons, and asteroids for a group of space terrorists to hide on.

On top of that, you mentioning the Kriken just reminded me that, while Hunters wasn't a great game, it did this series a lot of favors by introducing a lot of new, canonical species and concepts that can be fleshed out in future games. With the Pirates paralyzed, the Kriken can be a type of enemy. Who is Sylux? Who created Kanden? Was it the GF? Will we meet more of each of the other species?

So many interesting things came out of such an under-achieving game.

[1upD]

On top of that, you mentioning the Kriken just reminded me that, while Hunters wasn't a great game, it did this series a lot of favors by introducing a lot of new, canonical species and concepts that can be fleshed out in future games. With the Pirates paralyzed, the Kriken can be a type of enemy. Who is Sylux? Who created Kanden? Was it the GF? Will we meet more of each of the other species?

So many interesting things came out of such an under-achieving game.

I get the sense that we'll never hear from races seen in Hunters again. In example, Retro seemed to imply Rundas is not a Vhozon even though the two races have a nearly identical premise and look similar. (In my headcanon they're the same - they just have to be the same ) Learning more about the Kriken or Sylux in the next Metroid game would be simply incredible. Here's hoping.

[HYRUL3]

I like to be optimistic about these things. If they ever want to expand on their universe, that's the best way to do it.

If not, there's always, as you put it, headcanon.