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Dark Troopers are the bodies of Galactic Federation troopers that have been possessed by the Ing.

Description[]

When Samus Aran traveled to Aether in search of the missing GFMC Task Force Herakles, she discovered many corpses of deceased troopers within an underground hive. Shortly after this terrible discovery, the Ing possessed many of these corpses, "reanimating" them to attack her. A Black fog can be seen swirling around one side of a body working their way up to the other. The ease of symbiosis is due to the host's terminated status, allowing the Ing to possess without any resistance. However, the Ing were unable to fully complete this possession, leaving the resulting Darklings with slow reaction times and poor coordination. They are capable of using the troopers' rifles and swing their bayonets when at close quarters. They are relatively weak, possessing only 25HP (Hard/Hypermode). Any weapon can be used to kill them, though a single, charged Power Beam shot from Samus' Arm Cannon is sufficient enough.

As Samus explores the Temple Grounds further, four more troopers are seen being possessed, this time in front of the door leading to a security hall into the GFMC Compound. These troopers never appear again, whether Samus eliminated them or not. More troopers become already possessed by the time Samus returns to the Splinter Hive later on in her quest and are limited to the Splinter Hive area only. The most notable example of this is when Samus acquires the Morph Ball Bombs and optionally returns to Hive Chamber A from the same hole she fell through at the start of her quest, where she will encounter a Dark Missile Trooper. It too is also incompletely possessed, but has greater stamina than its fellow Darkling Marines.

As these possessed Marines do not lock all doors within an area, it is possible for Samus to avoid combat with every single one of these reanimated darklings.

Battle Statistics[]

Hard Mode

Attack Damage Output
Contact damage
Bayonet swipe
Rifle rounds 7-8 units of HP per bullet

Locations[]

Logbook entry[]

Dark Trooper

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Temporary scan

Morphology: Dark Trooper
Deceased GF soldier.
Bioscans indicate terminated lifesigns in this trooper, and the presence of an unknown biomass.

Logbook entry

Bioscans indicate terminated lifesigns in this trooper, and the presence of an unknown biomass with parasitic tendencies. Though the trooper's armor has been compromised, the bulk of it remains intact. Weapon systems remain online as well. Full parasitic fusion has yet to be obtained, resulting in low agility and response time.

Unused Data[]

Unused scan data exists within the Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Bonus Disc. There are minor changes from the final, notably the Bonus Disc refers to the Darkling Ing as an "alien parasite". According to the entry, the "parasite" would be the one responsible for compromising a trooper's armor. This was likely changed in the final since many of the deceased Marines received battle damage from local creatures, with their armors likely already compromised from said battles. It should be noted that a Trooper's visor is shattered when an Ing possesses a deceased body in the final. Another difference includes trooper being capitalized in the Bonus Disc. The model for the creature uses an uncompressed Galactic Federation Marine model. Marines otherwise makes no further appearance within the Bonus Disc.

Dark Trooper

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Bonus Disc

Logbook entry

Bioscans indicate terminated lifesigns in this Trooper, and the presence of an alien parasite. Though the Trooper's armor has been compromised by the parasite, the bulk of it remains intact. Weapon systems remain online as well. Full parasitic fusion has yet to be obtained, resulting in low agility and response time.

Trivia[]

Dark Troopers Command Chamber

Federation Troopers are reanimated through Ing possession in the Command Chamber.

  • The Ing are able to complete their parasitic fusion in an instant with every other bioform in the game except for the Troopers and Missile Trooper; this is most likely due to the latter bioforms having been dead long before their Darkling possession.
  • The visors of certain Troopers that are unbroken will shatter on the right side and fade completely black to match the uniform model of Dark Troopers; their eyes can also be seen glowing red through their broken visors. If one gets a close enough look, their teeth can also be seen.
  • Any Trooper corpse that possesses a Logbook entry will not be possessed. This is so players do not encounter problems finding one-time entries the first time around, especially if they aren't looking for them.
  • The Dark Trooper's slow and shambling gait, as well as the fact that they are dead bodies that rise and attack to begin with, seems to be based on that of a typical zombie in popular culture. This also makes them similar to the X-infected Zombie Researchers encountered in Metroid Fusion and to a lesser extent the Chozo Zombies (also infected by the X) in Metroid Dread.
  • In Metroid Prime: Episode of Aether, the appearance of the Dark Troopers is much more grotesque. Their entire faces can be seen, and when possessed, their eyes lose their pupils and veins pop up all over their faces.
  • In the Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, the section detailing the debut of the Dark Troopers is titled "The Few, The Proud, The Dead", which is a reference to the tagline for the United States Marine Corps (The Few, The Proud, The Marines).

Gallery[]

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