Biography of Ridley

Ridley was a famous Space Pirate general. After orphaning Samus Aran and creating his greatest enemy, he had many battles with her, and survived each and every one until his true death on Zebes. Below is a full account of his history.

Biography
Next to nothing is known of Ridley's pre-military background (if in fact he even had any), but it is safe to say that he made his way up the ranks until finally he was designated leader of the Space Pirates in battle. He also appears to have been held in considerable favor amongst members of High Command. Gray Voice said that he corrected Ridley's "genetic flaws" with Chozo technology, though the extent of this is unknown. Ridley is also outfitted with at least one cybernetic implant prior to becoming Meta Ridley, as he has a transmitter located at the base of his skull that allows his minions to communicate with him.

Meeting Samus Aran
Ridley's introduction took place on the Star Colony K-2L, on which he conducted a massive raid, with the main goal being to steal the planet's Afloraltite, but he also allowed his soldiers to destroy whatever they wanted.

During the raid, he met a three-year old girl holding her pet Rabbilis. This little girl was named Samus Aran, and she and Ridley would have a long history together. Amid all the destruction, little naive Samus went up to and asked to befriend Ridley. Humiliated in front of his troops, Ridley was only prompted to kill her, despite thinking that she was "so cute". Before he could strike, gowever, Samus' mother pushed her out of the way at the cost of her own life.

Meanwhile, Samus's father destroyed the supplies the pirates were after, but was himself killed in the blast. Ridley also appeared to be injured by the wreckage, but he survived, later claiming to have survived by consuming the flesh of the deceased humans and regrowing his own cells.

Zero Mission
Years later, Ridley returned to Zebes to establish a Central Command Center beneath the planet's surface. His forces annihilated the native Chozo civilization established on its surface before carrying out these orders. He also killed Gray Voice when the latter tried to shut down Mother Brain (he pretended to join the Space Pirates until he could get close enough to Mother Brain to shut her down, having realized her treachery), the rogue Chozo computer. Up until this time, the Galactic Federation had disregarded Zebes as a low priority, class XIII Wanderer Planet.

The Space Research Vessel Marina had begun returning from SR388 to Galactic Federation Headquarters with a newly discovered specimen, dubbed the Metroid. The Pirates swiftly attacked the vessel, destroying it and seizing the specimen, bringing it to Zebes. The Pirates discovered the Metroid's dangerous ability to drain life energy from organisms, and that in just 24 hours, they could clone them by exposure to beta rays. The Galactic Federation was quick to send its fleets into battle in order to remove the threat. Ridley personally led many battles against their forces over control of the planet, an example of his love of bloodlust and fighting, and defeated everything the Federation Police Force had to attack with.

Some time after these battles, he left Zebes with his personal flagship and the Space Pirate Mothership to fight the fleet under the command of Commander Adam Malkovich, but he later returned after receiving a distress signal stating that his Pirate comrade, Kraid, had been destroyed. He waited in his lair for the brave challenger who would dare invade Zebes, and was surprised to find the challenger was Samus Aran, now a young woman, a Bounty Hunter employed by the Federation to destroy the Metroids and Mother Brain.

Samus was also surprised to find Ridley, but she was able to remain calm as she faced and killed her nemesis, avenging her parents and allowing her to leave with the Unknown Item she had just obtained.

At the end of Samus' Zero Mission, after crash-landing near the mothership, she encounters a cybernetic organism built in Ridley's image, with the purpose of maintaining the ship while the real Ridley is absent. She managed to destroy it, but in doing so she triggered a self destruct sequence that was set to obliterate the ship in five minutes. Samus escaped via a hijacked Space Pirate Fighter.

Cybernetic enhancements and revival
Ridley, though wounded beyond fighting capability, was still alive, even after Samus had supposedly killed him.

The Space Pirates, by order of High Command, recovered his crippled body and infused it with machinery, reconstructing him into "Meta Ridley". When the Parasite Queens broke out on the Frigate Orpheon orbiting planet Tallon IV, Ridley remained behind to oversee the operation, and re-encountered Samus while she was escaping the exploding frigate. Shocked to see her nemesis, Meta Ridley broke free of his restraints and escaped the frigate, flying down to Tallon IV. Samus raced back to the Exterior Docking Hangar and tracked him to the planet below.

As she pursued Ridley, she lost tracking of him, and was required to search for him via ground-based recon. She saw him flying over the Phendrana Shorelines when she arrived at the Phendrana Drifts, and watched him fly away, presumably to the Glacier One facility or even the Phazon Mines to warn them that the Hunter was here. After Samus destroyed both laboratory operations, she had collected the twelve Chozo Artifacts needed to access the Impact Crater. While preparing to open the Artifact Temple, Meta Ridley flew in and destroyed the Chozo Totems, destroying Samus' chance to access the crater. In retaliation, she battled him once again. At the battle's conclusion, the temple's Chozo Statues blasted Meta Ridley and sent him hurtling into the depths below, again supposedly dead.

Phazon Crisis
Despite his fall, Meta Ridley somehow survived, and his body was recovered by surviving Pirates from the abandoned facilities. Sometime before the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Dark Samus used the power of Phazon to make the Colossus's inhabitants bow to her, with Meta Ridley presumably included. Now loyal to her, he played a role in the Norion invasion, where Samus fought him once again.

He first tried to attack Samus while she was crossing through a Morph Ball tunnel (where she was quite vulnerable), but she managed to use her Bombs to escape his grip. He then ambushed her in Generator C after she had begun activating it, with the intention of crushing Samus, but instead broke through the glass floor, sending both of them down the Generator Shaft. Samus had no time to react to his sudden disappearance and was forced to battle him again. Ridley was not fully healed from his fight on Tallon IV and was quite weak, allowing Samus to easily defeat him. At the battle conclusion, she delivers several shots directly into his throat, leaves him to fall the rest of the way down the Generator Shaft as she was rescued by Rundas.

Ridley, however, survived this battle too: he traveled to the Pirate Homeworld and at an undetermined time became the Pirate Seed's guardian; the massive quantities of raw Phazon given to him directly by the Phazon Core turned him into "Omega Ridley". Whether or not he willingly approached the Leviathan or was forced (by Dark Samus or the Leviathan itself) is unknown. Samus encountered him in the Leviathan and defeated him. However, Ridley's disintegration (unlike other Leviathan guardians) was never actually seen, so it may be that he lost all of his Phazon corruption and fled the seed before Samus could notice, due to the massive corruption she herself was receiving.

Final Battle and Death
Even after these devastating battles, though, Ridley managed to survive and return once more, this time with a purely organic body (presumably now distrusting cybernetic enhancements). He was sent on a solo mission to capture the baby, the last living Metroid specimen after Samus exterminated them on SR388, on Ceres Space Colony. After killing all scientists he awaited Samus' arrival.

Indeed, she arrived, and before she was able to take the baby's capsule and the baby with it, Ridley appeared, and she became shocked at the return of her nemesis, yet at the same time enraged, because Ridley was about to make off with her first "child". Samus, in a rage, attempted to kill Ridley, though he managed to flee and program the facility's Main Computer to destroy the station. Samus escaped and pursued Ridley.

He led her back to Zebes, where, as she discovered, some Pirates had stayed behind to rebuild the fortress and return to their old method of cloning Metroids. Samus began a rampage through Zebes, killing the reborn Kraid and the newly recruited Phantoon and Draygon, before she descended for Ridley's Lair. She dropped down into a chamber and Ridley appeared, preparing to fight her. With the loss of the armor plating from his previous form, he was now much more vulnerable to attack, and Samus was able to defeat him with ease. Unfortunately, she found in the connecting chamber the baby's broken capsule, with the baby itself nowhere to be found.

Samus then figured that the Metroid must be in Tourian, and because she defeated all four Pirate leaders, she now had access to the rebuilt Tourian. She proved correct, encountering the baby, now a Big Metroid, and killed Mother Brain for the final time, but not before she witnessed the baby's brutal murder. Samus escaped the self-destruction protocol, destined to obliterate all of Zebes, and it exploded, eradicating from the galaxy Mother Brain, the Space Pirates, the Metroids, and Ridley.

It is unknown how or why Ridley went from his Omega form to his purely organic body seen in Super Metroid. It is known, however, that Phazon contains healing properties and also worth noting is that Samus was fully cleansed from all traces of Phazon in her body following the destruction of both Dark Samus and Phaaze; these two factors may have significance on Ridley's curious return.

In the Super Metroid comic, Ridley stole the baby and programmed the Main Computer to self-destruct, as in the game. Later, when Mother Brain failed to convince the baby that she was its mother, Ridley captured Chief Hardy and Chairman Keaton, then planned to use them as bait on Samus so she could be destroyed in front of the baby. However, when Samus triumphed Tourian, Ridley decided to leave as "tactical retreat". Keaton then insulted him by calling him a coward for fleeing.

Rebirth
At the beginning of Metroid: Other M, Samus recounted the events of Super Metroid stating that Zebes' destruction took Mother Brain, the Space Pirates, the baby, and Ridley. However, this later proved to mostly be untrue.

Unbeknownst to Samus, she had come back with remnants of the Metroids and Ridley, and these were extracted from her Power Suit, and brought to a supposedly derelict facility called the Bottle Ship. Here, a group, dubbed "the ringleaders", used the particles to clone Metroids after abandoning a special-forces unit project using captured bioforms. Ridley was unintentionally cloned by the Lab Workers of the ship.

Initally, he appeared as a small creature the researchers did not recognize. Seeing no potential for use as a bioweapon, the creature was instead raised as a pet nicknamed "little birdie." They were oblivious to the fact that this small animal was actually Ridley's juvenile form. At some point, "little birdie" pretended to be dead to lure a misfortunate Lab Worker into its cage. The creature killed him and escaped.

Samus, after following a distress call to the Bottle Ship, found the remains of the scientist in the Breeding Room. As she examined the scientist, she stated that she felt a chill in the air, the presence of a "dark intelligence", since the carcass was violently ripped apart.

Shortly after this, Samus meets "little birdie" as the creature tries and fails to climb atop a piece of fruit. Samus did not see the creature as a threat, so she left it alone and continued on into the Biosphere. However, little birdie stalked her to the Exam Center unseen, and provoked many wildlife into battling her through its piercing screeches (sending nearby creatures in a panic), including Zeros. After destroying the King Kihunter and its hive, she saw little birdie eating the Kihunter colony's honey, and it roared at her. Samus found the creature to be a "disgusting beast" because it used her to destroy the Kihunter nest so it could feed on its nectar.

Samus soon saw the 07th Platoon being "attacked" by a purple lizard at the Exam Center. The creature also noticed Samus, and roared at her. Rushing to their aid, she saw the troops firing above the door she came from, and turned around just in time to see the lizard jump from the wall above and pin her down. The creature, at this point, seemed uninterested in the troopers, and focused its attack efforts on Samus. The creature apparently perceived a greater threat from Samus and took actions directly against her, but it is possible that it remembered Samus from its previous life and the threat she posed. While holding Samus down, the lizard called forth various bioforms to attack the troops. Samus fended off the creature's attacks, and before it was able to kill her, Anthony Higgs managed to fend off the beast with his Plasma Gun. The creature convulsed after being shot and fled, barely escaping another shot and crashing into a wall hidden by holographic scenery. After investigating the scene and discovering the mutilated body of Lyle Smithsonian, Samus followed a trail of green blood to find the empty shell of "little birdie" with its back ripped open, implying the small creature was a juvenile form of the lizard. Adam ordered her to follow the creature to the Pyrosphere, but shortly afterward, told Samus to head to the Cryosphere instead to search for survivors. After finding one and losing her, Adam noticed that the wavelength frequencies of the lizard were growing more aggressive, and told Samus to go back to the Pyrosphere yet again, with the order to activate her Plasma Beam if she encountered it. Samus eventually found the lizard-creature's husk bound to a wall, again with its back torn open from within.

Samus carried on until she reached the Geothermal Power Plant, after hearing from Adam that the creature appeared to be moving towards there. She was suddenly targeted by a red-laser sight, and believing it to be an attacker, pointed her Arm Cannon at the person. It turned out to be Anthony, who was already in the room to restore power while targeting an unseen monster in the room when Samus got in the way. Rushing behind the wall with Anthony, both tried to hide from the creature, who was taking cover in the shadows and launching attacks at them. The creature destroyed the bridge to the exit, preventing Samus and Anthony from leaving. Samus told Anthony she would deal with the monster, and used a Super Missile to complete his mission and destroy the magma-eruption port, raising the lava level and flooding the chamber with light. Samus then turned to see a dark, winged figure rising over the platform. Samus was incredibly shocked to find that the monster she had been tracking was her arch-nemesis, somehow reborn even after his death on Zebes: Ridley. At the sight of her longtime nemesis' sudden reappearance after a long time of peace since his "true" death, Samus experienced Posttraumatic stress disorder for the first time since her Zero Mission. She was too overcome with shock and horror to concentrate properly, allowing Ridley to grab her and scrape her against the walls, with her Power Suit deteriorating. This forced Anthony to use his Plasma Gun to save her again and give her time to recover, though Ridley knocked him off the platform, apparently into the lava, and then prevented Samus from rescuing him. Seeing what appeared to be the death of her close friend, Samus was able to compose herself, equip the Plasma Beam, and do battle with Ridley once again. After Ridley's body was sufficiently ravaged by Samus in her rage, he fell to the platform, seemingly dead yet again. Samus, after looking over the edge to see if Anthony indeed survived, was suddenly attacked again by a revived Ridley. The two fought again until Ridley escaped by breathing fire to create a hole in the wall and rammed through it.

Later in the game, immediately before Adam detaches Sector Zero, he gives Samus several final orders, one of which is for her to destroy Ridley, because he is as "much of a threat as the Metroids".

A weakened, heavily wounded Ridley was later seen at the mercy of a large creature (which turned out to be the Queen Metroid). Samus arrived shortly to find his body as a gray and lifeless husk, making her wonder what could have happened. After the post-credits, Ridley's corpse is no longer there. It is assumed that the Galactic Federation took the body of Ridley's clone and transferred it to the Biologic Space Laboratories research station, where it was frozen and seen in Metroid Fusion, only to be infested by an X Parasite and become Neo-Ridley. This could also explain why the frozen clone collapsed and was later seen as a gray corpse before transforming into Neo Ridley.

X infection
The Ridley clone's corpse was captured and stored at the Biologic Space Laboratories research station, in a Sub-Zero Containment. Samus eventually found him and believed him to be frozen, yet dead, and soon after his body shattered, with an X Parasite leaving the body. His genetic code was eventually copied by an X Parasite and heavily mutated by it, resulting in a far more menacing Ridley. Like always, Samus was able to destroy Ridley, for the probable last time.