Ceres Space Colony

The Ceres Space Colony, named after the Roman Goddess, is mentioned in the prologue of Super Metroid. It is a large metal structure in an unnamed Asteroid field, with notable scientific equipment on-board.

General

The Station is where Samus Aran, after the events of Metroid II: Return of Samus, has deposited the only remaining Metroid larva for study by the Galactic Federation. In the game's Intro sequence, a distress call is received from the station and Samus investigates. It is later revealed that the Space Pirate Captain of the Guard, Ridley, has broken into the station. The crew is deceased and the Metroid larva is missing. At the end of a short series of rooms, Samus encounters Ridley in a pseudo boss battle. After the battle is concluded, a timer appears in the corner of the screen, beginning at 1 minute. This is the self destruct timer, and Samus must escape within that time. When the player escapes, a scene shows the colony detonating and Samus' ship flying away from it.

Notes on the Boss Battle

The fight against Ridley has two rules that make it unique in Super Metroid. Ridley can be defeated either by being shot 100 times or if Samus' energy is reduced below 30.

Other Miscellaneous Notes

There are approximately 104 unique tiles composing Ceres station. Each tile is a 16x16 pixel object that can be flipped and rotated. The MusicAL loop for Ceres is approximately 4.26 seconds long. While Samus is in the station, but before meeting Ridley, the screen has a bluish tint on the front. This blue follows a specific pattern: The bottom 56 pixels have their blue value (on the RGB pixel format) increased by 112. Above that, each 16 pixels has their blue values decreased by 16 every 16 pixels, creating a blocky FADE. The three scientist corpses in the room where the Metroid larve was shown in the introduction have Purple hair, though it appears blue with The Filter applied by the SNES.