Phazon

Phazon is a bio-mutagenic substance capable of killing, controlling, and corrupting other life forms. There are three types of Phazon, being blue, red, and black.

Blue Phazon
The most common of the three types, Blue Phazon is capable of growing throughout most organic substances, making corruption of other creatures and even Samus' Varia Suit surprisingly simple. It is also the most stable of the three types, keeping its properties even under high heat and/or pressure. Similarly, the molecular stability makes Phazon possible to crystallize into Phazite, a strong material frequently used by Space Pirates in shielding. It does not emit the same radiation that liquid Phazon does, but it does have a tendency to accumulate static electricity.

Another notable feature of Phazon is that it is capable of living in space, which is what makes the use of Leviathans an effective method for corrupting planets. The Phazon homeworld is Phaaze, and its guardian is Dark Samus.

Red Phazon
Red Phazon is less common and far less stable than its blue counterpart. However, what it lacks in stability, it makes up for in power. Red Phazon is very easily combustible, and hard to put out. Its previous homeworld was Nova Rubra, but now it resides in Phaaze's moon Ryavar, its guardian being Rytheus.

Black Phazon
Black Phazon is significantly rarer and similarly more powerful than the other two types. It shares few properties with the other types of Phazon, being that it is solid at room temperature, does not grow nearly as quickly as the others, does not radiate, but instead has the tendency to vaporize. This toxic gas is easily fatal to most life forms, but is not observed much due to either its rarity. Its homeworld is Phaaze's moon Oriet, and its guardian possibly being Miasma.

Green Phazon
There was a short story arc in which Ridley became corrupted with green Phazon, but its exact properties are unknown to me and it has not been seen elsewhere in Facetroid. It does have a homeworld whose name I've forgotten, but its guardian is Tera'Khan.

Corruption and its effects
There is no one definition of corruption, as there are several types, dependent on how the subject became corrupted.

- Benign

It is unclear exactly what causes each type of corruption, but benign corruption is essentially an immunity. The subject is unaffected by Phazon or its radiation, and depending on its severity is sometimes able to use Phazon or absorb it. Example is Chondra and possibly Rocker, I'm unsure.

- Augmenting

Most often, corrupted subjects are altered by it, gaining the use of Phazon powers and the ability to absorb it, which, unfortunately, also puts the user at risk of mental corruption. Examples are Admiral Halley (EMV Luxor), and Admiral Dane (GFS Roanoke).

- Damaging

Occasionally, subjects become either mentally corrupted and lose all self-control or are unable to survive the corruption itself, most often leading the subject to blind violence before dying. The majority of the Space Pirates' Phazon-infusion experiments ended with damaging psychological effects at around infusion 4.

Biology
Aspergillus phaazius (commonly known as just Phazon) is the most notable species of aspergillus due to the presence of Phazon within the mitochondria. Phazon itself is not a well understood material, as it acts in ways that contradict several laws of physics, but the biology of A. phaazius is fairly well understood. The radioactivity of phazon allows A. phaazius to synthesize its own energy from almost any material. The mitochondria essentially acts like a solar panel, releasing energy when particles emitted from the phazon remove electrons from other atoms. This is also why A. phaazius has the tendency to build up static charge when left unattended.

The normal organic structures of A. phaazius don’t present a significant danger to other species through radiation poisoning; however, the spores of A. phaazius (which contain more phazon due to the higher energy requirement) have a much greater risk for radiation poisoning, especially if these spores are inhaled.

A. phaazius’s biomutagenic properties have been known for quite some time, but closer study reveals that a connected series of nuclei have the capacity to alter specific sequences of a host organism’s DNA for the benefit of the fungus. Because nuclei of most cells are connected to one another by structures similar to axons and neural synapses, it’s believed that A. phaazius has a sort of primitive intelligence through its combined nuclei forming neural pathways. This has yet to be proven, but A. phaazius’s tendency to seek out other life forms makes this a viable possibility.

Phazon corruption is also a mysterious topic, but the aforementioned theory would make its methodology make sense. Current theories suggest that if phaazius’s nuclei interact as neurons, then there is a possibility that these same nuclei could form neural pathways with the nuclei of host cells, eventually forming a primitive intelligence by using the host cells against them. This primitive intelligence may be the reason that corrupted subjects seem to lose all of their previous consciousness and attack other living beings, even friends or relatives.