Giger (Metroid)

Giger (ガイガ Gaiga) is an elite member of the Space Pirates. Although he has never come into contact with the famous space hunter Samus Aran, he has had multiple encounters with lesser hunter Adus Lesk.

Early life
Currently, next to nothing is known about Giger's life before his eventual demise. It is believed that not even he is entirely certain as to what may have occurred in his former life, although as the time has passed he has slowly regained memories.

Rebirth
Giger was created after the demise of Ridley using recovered DNA that the Galactic Federation discovered on a return excursion to a former colony world of his species. While the cloning process was partially to prevent full extinction of a sapient species, it was also secretly planned to rehabilitate the new creature and turn it into a loyal weapon for the Federation. Despite this, one of the lead officials on the classified project betrayed the Federation and revealed Giger's existence to the Space Pirates, who quickly raided the top secret laboratories and stole him. Ultimately reprogrammed to serve the pirates as Ridley had done before him, he served as a general in the pirate armies.

It is believed, although not confirmed, to have been Giger's men who invaded the Biologic Space Laboratory, and while nearly all of these men were slain in the process, a trio made it out alive with three Metroid specimens. These were in turn transported in secret to the planet Tozect, homeworld of the Toryd.

Invasion of Tozect
Giger was in command of the staff on Tozect when the Necrusk invasion occurred, staged from Tozera. He would also first encounter his eventual rival Adus during this invasion, although he would not directly come into contact with Lesk until later, having been behind a glass window in another room. Although the R&D projects were almost a total loss, he was able to get several important data streams moved to a new location.

Personality
Although initially his personality appeared complacent and silent, upon being stolen and reprogrammed by the Space Pirates he would become as ruthless and bloodthirsty as his predecessor, General Ridley -- this may be due to portions of Ridley's personality being downloaded into Giger's brain. However, Giger has proven himself to be more violent, able to sacrifice the Pirates under his command in ways that not even Ridley had been reported doing.

This is not to say that Giger is not without respect for his predecessor, and Giger seeks to jumpstart and continue in Metroid research, although his focuses have been on different aspects in comparison to those of Ridley. Even so he has honored Ridley with his own Metroid hybrid species, the Meltroids. He also honors successful endeavors, with a primary instance being his promoting the three Space Pirates who brought him the Metroid specimen into his captains, giving them Metroid technology. However, failure is not an option for his rank-and-file, and those who fail will become disposable at Giger's whim.

Giger has quickly developed a furious hatred of human bounty hunter Adus Lesk, who indirectly led to the Necrusk invasion of Tozect and cost him a major chunk of his R&D research. He greatly dislikes the Necrusk of course as well for their attempts at usurping the Space Pirates, but he is willing to purposefully infect his own soldiers with Necrusk microbes if it means making Adus' life more difficult and hopefully shorter.

He also is known for his strange obsession over Chozo relics, referring to the species as "our forefathers" and seeking to obtain as much of their former technology and knowledge as possible. He has yet to fully elaborate on what he might mean by this.

Powers and abilities
As a member of the Space Dragons, he has proven himself to be quite capable in battle, showing more strategy than any of the various Ridleys. Being a more mature individual than his predecessor, he is able to lift an armored Human being effortlessly and can even attempt to blow him away with his large primary wings (while he does possess a secondary set of wings on his elbows, these are more for stabilization during flight). Giger's tail is even longer than Ridley's, and has been genetically altered to include a super-heated edge and the ability to generate an energy shield. His extra large wings allow him to move quicker than Ridley, as well, easily able to outrun most opponents.

Like all Space Dragons, Giger can breathe plasma, and can do so in a large stream or as fireballs. His beak is also able to fire a wide beam energized from each beak's tip and expanded in between them to fill the entire area. Doing so however is his only weakness however as he must recover after each beam fired.

Partially due to finding his rival in a greenhorn bounty hunter such as Lesk as well as his own survival instincts, he has not been killed, though he has sustained severe and even mortal injury. However he is more than willing to consume others to incorporate their cells into his body—usually his own soldiers but also natural wildlife.

He does not appear to possess or he possibly has not utilized a camouflage ability such as that seen in Ridley. He may simply be too arrogant to use it.

Behind the scenes

 * Despite the games he appears in indicating that he and Ridley are part of a species known as Space Dragons, the games also hint that the two creatures may in fact simply be highly modified Chozo.