Pulse Bombu

The Pulse Bombu is a flying creature in Metroid Prime. Like all members of the Bombu family, it is comprised entirely of raw electricity.
The Harmony-Class Drone looks and behaves identically to it, and both beings share many aspects with the Atomic in some of its depictions.
==Description==
The Pulse Bombu's body is made of four yellow-green spheres attached to a larger cyan nucleus, making it akin to how a chemical compound is presented in certain literature works. It glows as it floats through the air and periodically releases its explosive yellow spheres towards the ground; its constant production of energy causes these segments to be instantly replaced as they're discarded. A Pulse Bombu lacks any intelligence other than an instinctive attraction to charged energy sources.
Samus encounters them in the Chozo Ruins and Phendrana Drifts. While they don’t actively attack, the explosive segments they shed pose a hazard. Additionally, they are attracted to sources of charged energy and will instinctively fly toward Samus if she uses her Charge Beam, harming her on contact. Their slow movements within open spaces allow her to easily evade them however, contrary to their more confined relatives. Their energy-based nature makes them immune to all weaponry except the electricity of the Wave Beam, and this consequently means they will be instantly destroyed if they touch water.
In the Phazon Mines, there is an invisible variant of the Pulse Bombu called the Invisible Bombu. 
==Official data==
===Logbook entry===
===Official website===
"The Pulse Bombu floats through life, periodically releasing explosive segments from its body. It lacks any intelligence beyond an instinctive attraction to other charged energy sources.
The Pulse Bombu consists entirely of raw electricity. It appears to glow as it floats gracefully through the air."
===Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion: Prima's Official Strategy Guide===
;Pulse Bombu
:"Pulse Bombus are floating electrical creatures invulnerable to most known weapons. The electric field they produce can cause your visors to malfunction if you get too close. The only weapon that can destroy them is the Wave Beam. Unlike the related Scatter Bombus, Pulse Bombus drop pulse bombs. To pass by them, shoot them with your Wave Beam or roll past between bomb drops."
;Pulse Bombu
:Found In: Chozo Ruins, Phendrana Drifts
:Recommended Weapon: Wave Beam
:"Pulse Bombus are floating electrical creatures invulnerable to most known weapons. The electric field it produces can cause your visors to malfunction if you get too close. The only weapon that can destroy it is the Wave Beam. Unlike the related Scatter Bombus, Pulse Bombus drop pulse bombs. To get past them, shoot them with your Wave Beam or roll past between bomb drops. They can also attach to you in a way similar to a Metroid. If they do, quickly switch to Morph Ball mode and use a bomb to drive them off."
===Metroid Prime: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide===
;PULSE BOMBU
:"The Pulse Bombu is an energy-based creature that floats gracefully through the air. It will drop explosive charges as it moves, so you must take it out from a distance--use the Wave Beam to send it to the graveyard. Since you don't have the Wave Beam yet, take the coward's way out and run."
===Metroid Prime Official Strategy Guide===
;PULSE BOMBU
:MORPHOLOGY
:"A life-form of raw energy, the Pulse Bombu periodically releases explosive segments from its body. Pulse Bombus are energy beings invulnerable to most known weapons. Electrical energy can harm them, however. They lack an intelligence beyond an instinctive attraction to other charged energy sources. Pulse Bombus produce energy constantly. All excess energy is shed, regardless of who or what may be nearby."
:COMBAT TIPS
:"The Pulse Bombu is one enemy that it's best to keep at a distance. Only a Charged Wave Beam is enough to take out a Pulse Bombu, but be sure to keep away while targeting, and remember that the Bombu will be attracted to the charged Power Beam."
===Metroid Prime Official Perfect Guide===
;PULSE BOMBU
:"Indestructible hovering bombardiers; your best bet for now is to roll into a Morph Ball and avoid the things."
==Development notes==
The internal filenames for the Pulse Bombus are Atomic or AtomicAlpha,Metroid Prime - The Cutting Room Floor referring to the similar Atomic species from Super Metroid that Bombus highly resemble. It is likely that Bombus were originally Atomics before Nintendo requested that Retro Studios replace classic returning enemies with new original enemies."The entire first year’s worth of characters I modeled for the game were cut. At first, we were making all the enemies looking just like the old Metroid 2D enemies. Nintendo later decided that they wanted the enemies to have a new look, so we scrapped all of those creatures. These weren’t just models that were scrapped, but these were enemies that had a full set of animations and some even had AI programmed. I’m actually very glad Nintendo made that call because I think the newer designs that Jones and Keller came up with were a big improvement over the original 2D designs." https://shinesparkers.net/interviews/mike-sneath/ In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, the Harmony-Class Drone is identical in behavior and appearance to the Pulse Bombus, and it is likewise called "Atomic" in internal data.Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - The Cutting Room Floor
According to Zoid Kirsch, the static shown on Samus's visor when getting close to a Pulse Bombu is generated by displaying bits and bytes of the game's actual code.Zoid Kirsch (ZoidCTF). "When you see Samus’s visor affected by electrical “noise” in game, you’re actually seeing the bits and bytes of the Metroid Prime software code itself being rendered on the screen. Turns out machine code is sufficiently random to work great as a static noise texture!" 8 Nov 2022 10:04 a.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590012343286894592 This is due to the Nintendo GameCube only having 24MB of RAM, so this was thought of as a way to save memory for other textures.Zoid Kirsch (ZoidCTF). "In this clip as Samus approaches the Pulse Bombu, the screen fills with static to show interference with her visor. As we worked on this a big issue is the memory use of the noise texture. The Gamecube only has 24MB of RAM, so every texture has to be carefully considered." 8 Nov 2022 10:04a.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590012338421518337Zoid Kirsch (ZoidCTF). "If we used a low resolution texture (64x64) to save memory the “static” would be blurry and not crisp. One engineer on the team came up with a great idea: what if we just use the memory holding the Metroid Prime code itself! We quickly tried it out and it looked amazing." 8 Nov 2022 11:04a.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590012341676302336
== Trivia ==
* The Luminoth's creation, the Harmony-Class Drone, is seemingly designed to imitate the Pulse Bombu from Tallon IV. How the Luminoth knew of the latter's existence is never stated, but it is known that the Chozo colony of Tallon IV met with them in the past.
==Gallery==
South Quarantine Tunnel.jpg|South Quarantine Tunnel
Courtyard Entryway.jpg|Courtyard Entryway
Temple Entryway.jpg|Temple Entryway
Ruins entryway.jpg|Ruins Entryway
North Quarantine Tunnel.jpg|North Quarantine Tunnel
Transport Access.jpg|Transport Access
==References==
Category:Tallon IV
Category:Chozo Ruins
Category:Phendrana Drifts
Category:Bombu Family
Category:Bioweapons