You hit it square on the money, on all points.

Artemis' internal model name is "Namus Naran", for "Not Samus Aran". She's even built on the same body that my Samus model used.

Getting away from the Metroid IP had its advantages though, beyond getting out from beneath the wrathful eye of Nintendo. One of the biggest problems I had with writing the Phazon hexology was that Samus is a lone wolf, and it's challenging writing compelling narrative with only one character - you can't really have compelling conversations with yourself.

By taking the Slutty Sassy Samus characterization and transplanting her into an original IP, I was able to free myself from that constraint and give her a companion, in Medusa. I personally find that my characters work best when they have someone to talk to, and I generally don't care about giving the male any meaningful role in the narrative - they're mostly just a cock designed to satisfy the ladies, with a body attached to it.

Corsair has expanded far beyond the original ideas for the Phazon hexology though, with an entirely new path paved toward Hiveship now in mind. Being able to write Artemis' lore myself has allowed for a lot more depth and complexity in my opinion - especially since Nintendo has gone on record as saying that they were really didn't put any thought at all in Samus' background. They, quote, "chose the job title of 'bounty hunter' because it sounds cool". They didn't even know what 'bounty hunter' meant when they chose it for her. They literally just rule-of-cool'd her occupation.

And don't get me wrong, I will never know the rule-of-cool. I am a strong adherent to it, as well as its pornographic cousin, the rule-of-hot. But I think it stands testament to how little care Nintendo put into Samus as a character when first making Metroid. I am absolutely a character-first kind of writer, I like writing a setting and a plot and then dropping defined characters into it and seeing how they would navigate it, making the story mold itself around the characters rather than molding the characters to fit the story. And so Samus being so poorly-thought-out as a character was a bit of a sticking point for my writing her. Which is why I largely just wrote her a new character anyways - it's not like Nintendo gave her much to replace.

But yes, Artemis is absolutely my interpretation of Samus, packaged into a new face but with the same body, same voice, and same mannerisms, dropped into a new world with a new plot.