Topic: Metroid: Other M Thread of SPOILERS

Do we ever find out who the deleter was or did I just miss that entirely? It's as if that story line was dropped somewhere near the end...

@SkullMan: It was James Pierce...

The sketchy guy with the goatee? The one that was messing with that computer when Samus walks in on him in the beginning of the game...where the door is like blasted open?

It never really explains or dives deeper into it.

Well I had a hunch on that guy being a traitor even before their was a traitor in the story...it was all kind of cut and dry, quite easy to see were the story was going. But the lack of them never wrapping up the lose ends on that plot point and just jumping straight into the NB one threw me off.

James killed all of them (including KG, who he dumped in the lava) and he was killed by either MB or something else defending her when he tried to ambush her. Also, I, too, suspected James of having evil intentions from the very start; it's amazing just how evil having facial hair makes you look...

All you really need to figure it out are three facts:
1) It's easily narrowed down to James and K.G., as we know it's not Adam or Anthony, and the other two guys are already dead.
2) Whomever of the two it was killed the other one and dumped his body in the lava.
3) James's body is later found.

being the complete obsessive he is it's not likely that sakamoto forgot about one of the most important plot points. i thought they clearly wanted it to be a mystery you had to solve on your own.

There are many things that point to James being the Deleter, the most unnoticed one being that when Samus encounters him in the Biosphere Test Area, he looks at Samus then back down under the computer and acts like nothing's wrong. Later, the building is destroyed.

Also, I don't think MB or "Melissa" is dead. If she can unthaw herself easily from Samus' ice beam, how can a much weaker ice beam plus a few bullets kill her?

Seems like the easy way out if you ask me. Oh we didn't quite wrap that up, so we left it to the gamer to build their own experience an conclusion out of it, yada yada yada...

i don't know why people interpret it like that. they did wrap that thread up, by putting in clues all throughout the game to tell you who it was. they just didn't hold your hand and kill the mystery by saying "oh yeah, it was this guy".

People interpret like that because they didn't wrap it up. Other wise obviously no one would be saying anything about it.

No one asking for hand holding and walking us through a story like little kids, they already did that with Samus' and companies dialogue. Just some closure to that story arc, and perhaps some motives? Not just dropping it off abruptly 3/4 of the way through the game to pick up on the main MB story arc.

It was obvious. If people didn't figure it out, they weren't paying attention.
Sigh.

Sigh. Like I said before anyone could tell that he was the traitor from the very minute Samus walks in on him with the computer alone. It was the fact that nothing else ever happened during this build up as to who the deleter was and why he was doing this. One can assume, and say okay that guy is the deleter. I was paying attention, knew he was the traitor...yet still wanted the game to tell me he was, and to tell me why. I wanted to have some closure on that point, and the game failed to deliver in this regard.

they never dropped anything. the scenes involving james are staged to make it clear that he's the deleter all the way to the end- if you've been paying attention to the clues, then finding james' body in the lab is the last bit of evidence needed to prove that he's the one and that comes just before the final boss.

as for why he did it, well, do you really need an explanation? he's a morally deficient guy who accepted a crooked mission for his own profit. giving it any further attention would make it seem like it were a really shocking thing, while presenting it like it's not worth following up on makes it feel like this is something commonplace in the federation. it makes the extent of the military's corruption that much stronger when no one really bats an eye at an assassin being planted like this.

So another space marines body was laying around the station. That occurrence happened in like every other room.

So then since he's the last body we encounter we assume he's the deleter then? That's dumb.

unless you, you know, use process of elimination. then it makes a lot of sense.

don't forget that samus had been tenaciously chasing him into the labs prior to his death and that he went as far as blasting the controls for a bridge to stop her. you know by that point that whoever's in the suit is obviously the deleter, and hey, it turns out to be james. is it really that unreasonable? i thought you said it was obvious he was the deleter from the start, so why are you complaining that it wasn't made clear enough?

It's not dumb. It's a simple process of elimination. You already know it's either James or K.G., so once you find James, the thought process simply goes something like, "Here's James's body, so K.G. was the one dumped in lava, meaning James here was the deleter." After that, you can make the connection as to why James died in the lab and later discover some of the clues that were left earlier in the game.

They probably should've had Samus mention something about it during the final cutscene. Like 'I still can't figure out who it was' or something to that effect since there were only 2 possibilities left in her mind (Maybe only 1 if you look at the characters page).

Samus: The Deleter was actually... unmasks James Old man Jenkins James Pierce!
Anthony: James? But why?!
James: I wanted the gold that was hidden in a secret vault on the ship! And it would've been mine, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling bounty hunter and her obnoxious android!

Clear enough for you now, SkullMan?

Because the game itself never acknowledges it.