Power Suit

A Chozo Power Suit is a suit of powered armor designed by the Chozo. This term applies to two things: Samus's basic suit without any upgrades, and her suit as a whole regardless of it's current upgrade level. A Chozo known as Dryn was apparently instrumental in its development, and Mother Brain claims to be its creator. Two specific models are well-known: the first is a suit given to Samus Aran in her teenage years by the Chozo who raised her (seen in Metroid Zero Mission). This suit was lost to her as a result of a Pirate attack during this game's events, however, and was soon replaced with an enhanced Power Suit, featuring slight physical differences. Presumably this second Power Suit is an ancient model, given its depiction in Chozo prophetic murals and its compatibility with some of the oldest Chozo-produced upgrades such as the Space Jump, Plasma Beam and Gravity Suit. This second suit is the one many players are used to seeing Samus in, as it has appeared in every Metroid game except the original NES Metroid.

Samus’s Power Suit comes with a standard Power Beam and allows her to survive underwater and in outer space, and to resist Space Pirate poison. Its basic functions are not always sufficient for a busy warrior, however, so the Chozo used a modular construction allowing the suit to be outfitted with a wide variety of weapons systems and special armor. The Chozo themselves left many such tools on various planets they inhabited, including the Varia and Gravity Suit upgrades. The Luminoth, another ancient race technologically equivalent to the Chozo, were able to produce modifications compatible with the Power Suit including the Dark Suit and the Light Suit. A considerable amount of the suit is biological, which resulted in Phazon corruption following Samus’s encounter with the Omega Pirate. Exposure to the large quantity of unrefined Phazon ore caused a kind of ‘mutation’, rendering the suit impervious to radiation from all but the highest concentrations of Phazon, and allowing Samus to fire the devastating Phazon Beam under certain conditions.

While active, the Power Suit bonds with Samus biologically, and cannot be taken off without her cooperation. It has been observed on many occasions that the method Samus uses to remove the Power Suit is to have it dematerialize with a bright flash. When the suit is inactive, Samus is able to retain the upgrades within herself until it becomes active again (observed in the events of Metroid Zero Mission.) But it has also been observed that she can have it rematerialize at will, (seen several times taking place in the Metroid E-manga) suggesting that this suit is not meant to be dismantled to be removed like regular armor, and that it's somehow put on, taken off, and upgraded by using an energy-to-matter reaction. When this is not possible to do, the Galactic Federation has been able to modify it while she is unconscious. In the first instance of this, they added PED functionality to take advantage of a Phazon infection in her bloodstream. Later, the weaker Fusion Suit is built on the remains of Samus’s Power Suit after large portions were surgically removed due to X infestation.