Revenge of the nerds

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by big_smile »

Well, I always lumped the Chaos Emeralds and all those floating platforms as magic. But they probably should be more accurately be classed as other phenomena (as you have).

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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There's always Clarke's Third Law...

And besides, we never actually see Witchcart turn anyone into stone so it could just be a bluff.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

Other than Witchcart and Lumina Flowlight (in a dream world, so it's debatable if that counts), the only time I can think of that we see magic is in the storybook games.
The only thing I can really think of is the Mystic Melody and the associated pedestals and materialing platforms. If you really wanted to stretch, I guess you could say that their aesthetics closely resemble that of the Knuckles Tribe ruins in SA1, so they possibly share some sort of connection to the Master and / or Chaos Emeralds.

At this point, I'm kind of torn whether or not the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emeralds are strictly magical or not. I guess that depends on your exact definition of magic, although at this point I'm more used to seeing them as batteries that serve to power up large machines (and apparently have a limited supply of "energy" to dispense if you believe Sonic Unleashed's opening cinematic opening, although this is contradicted in Sonic Adventure and I'm sure other places). Anyways, they've become such a constant in the series, and a lot of their magical aura is diminished if the cast can repeatedly and reliably use them as tools all the time.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Whatever they are, it's notable that not only are they stated to give life to all things (and through the transitive property power badniks via animals), they're also enriched by life itself, or rather its "heart." So it's in effect a positive feedback loop. No wonder they're chaotic.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Wombatwarlord777 wrote:The only thing I can really think of is the Mystic Melody and the associated pedestals and materialing platforms. If you really wanted to stretch, I guess you could say that their aesthetics closely resemble that of the Knuckles Tribe ruins in SA1, so they possibly share some sort of connection to the Master and / or Chaos Emeralds.
Good example. I definitely think they belong to the Knuckle tribe, and thus they could be a form of their tech. They mastered the hyper rings, so being able to hide platforms and trails of rings in another dimension and recall them in response to a melodic password isn't too big of a stretch.

And I forgot to mention the most obvious magical element: rings. In some of the American literature they're even called magic rings. They could be an example of unconventional technology too, but the way they constantly spawn everywhere makes them seem more like a natural phenomenon. If they were artificial then whatever was generating and distributing them would have to be enormously powerful, probably operating in a nearby dimension like the Special Stage (which of course is my pet theory). They could also be a construct of the gods, in which case they would meet my definition of magic (a supernatural power that obeys a set of laws that allow mortals to make use of it, such as by casting a spell).
Dr. BUGMAN wrote:Whatever they are, it's notable that not only are they stated to give life to all things (and through the transitive property power badniks via animals), they're also enriched by life itself, or rather its "heart." So it's in effect a positive feedback loop.
Just to be specific, they don't actually give life directly. They "supply all life with amazing power"/"give energy to all living beings".

That got me thinking, though. What if the Emeralds are really just fancy energy converters? Tikal actually said, "the 7 Emeralds can change our thoughts into power." I took that as her way of saying they make your wishes come true, but what if she meant that they literally draw in positive and negative emotions ("there are seven chaos in the world and this chaos is power, and this power is drawn from the heart") and convert them into "chaos power," or chaos energy ("The poem tells of a pure 'power' neither good nor evil contained within the Chaos Emeralds themselves"), a type of energy that causes any living thing to thrive and which certain beings can learn to manipulate freely (Chaos Control)? The SA1 strategy guide states that Chaos's "negative emotions [were] amplified by the Chaos Emeralds," which could either mean they feed your emotions back to you or, more likely, convert them into tremendous power and feed that back.

While neither good nor evil, we know from the Perfect Chaos battle that the Emeralds also store some finite amount of positive and negative chaos energy, perhaps based on the type of emotion used to generate it, so they're also batteries, but this could explain why they never seem to run dry. We also learned that "the controller" - the person using the chaos energy - can only use the energy aligned with their own current emotional state unless, like Sonic, they are able to "unify" or "subdue" the chaos ("that which subdues is that which controls Chaos") by maintaining some kind of emotional balance ("it was Sonic and his friends’ 'faith' which made Chaos realise this, and there was no need for this 'power of the heart' to be subdued by the Master Emerald. Sonic embodied the proper use of 'power.'"). Maybe that's why Super Sonic usually looks much more sober than his smirking blue base form.

Ring energy seems to be a different thing. While rings can also be used to bend space-time and seem to be innately usable by biological life, it wouldn't make sense for them to be required to maintain super form if they were made of chaos energy since the Emeralds themselves are already supplying a practically infinite well of the stuff.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Well, venturing back into thematic territory, feedback happens with audio equipment and "sonic" has an alternative dictionary definition of "the quality of sound." It's worth noting that there are seven notes in musical scale, and the visible spectrum was divided into seven colors in accordance with Greek philosphy that colors are connected to sound (who also gave us "chaos" and "echidna.") The CE don't quite adhere to ol' Roy G. Biv, but they're defined by their colors and the number seven. Moreover, "discord" is synonymous with "Chaos."

Being a controller of chaos, if you will, is harmonizing discord. Chaos let the discord define him, his vary shape.

Where rings fit into this is unclear, maybe something to do with resonance (let's put in a pin in it for later). That they aren't a product of chaos energy is untrue, however; Chaotix features Chaos Rings molded from Master Emerald energy, and Sonic R features a ring dispenser in Reactive Factory which is presumably fueled/stocked by one of the Chaos Emeralds featured there, either directly or with residual energy after it's obtained.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Dr. BUGMAN wrote:That they aren't a product of chaos energy is untrue, however; Chaotix features Chaos Rings molded from Master Emerald energy, and Sonic R features a ring dispenser in Reactive Factory which is presumably fueled/stocked by one of the Chaos Emeralds featured there, either directly or with residual energy after it's obtained.
The Chaos Rings are just solidified energy that rose out of the Pillar (which is almost certainly the same as the energy from the ME, but the emerald wasn't there and it's worth making the distinction) and filled the space inside the hyper ring that Eggman had just used to travel to the old altar in Hidden Palace. The shape it took is either completely incidental or, at best, could indicate some kind of relationship or similarity. The Chaos Rings are never shown to exhibit similar properties to the golden rings. They seem to have gone straight into the Special Stage after their creation, so we don't now much about them - Eggman's research was focused on the hyper rings and rings in general, which led to the creation of the Dark Ring. All we really know is that they presumably destroyed the Dark Ring in the good ending, because it destroys them if you don't bring all 6 in the bad ending.

To say that the ring machine in Reactive Factory is powered by the red Emerald is a huge assumption. It's just as likely that there's an enormous store of ring energy inside, or that it's pulling them from another dimension (same as this puppy from Generations). Eggman was able to create the Dimension Ring Generator on Flickies' Island without collecting any Emeralds, which can be broken down into 50 individual rings in S3&K, but he could have just been mashing normal rings together to create the dimension rings so that isn't necessarily an example of artificial ring creation either.

The only definitive connections between rings and emeralds are that you need rings to transform and big rings lead to the Special Stage.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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This was posted on Sonic Retro by Windii:
Maekawa Shiro recently made several tweets about Sonic Heroes's early planning stages, namely the team formations.

In this tweet he states that they originally planned to include characters like Mighty and Ray into the game and that there were going to be 6 teams and 18 characters before ending up going with 4 teams and 12 characters, the reason being that there were simply "too many characters" and that the dev team knew they were going to see 'hell' if they were to realize that idea.

In the later tweet he elaborates on the originally planned team formations. He remembers them being something like this:

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles
Amy, Cream, Rouge (Cream is the Fly type)
Chaos, E102, Big
Espio, Charmy, Vector
Fang, Bean, Bark
Metal Sonic, Ray, Mighty

Yep. E102 was planned to return. Shadow was not. One of his mutual followers named manaita took notice of this by saying "Shadow is not there." which lead him to further elaborate on this. He states that they had a "Shadow DIE or NOT Meeting" which went totally crazy as soon as someone said "Huh? We cannot add characters who have died." The meeting split into "Shadow is dead" and "Shadow is not dead" factions with everyone voicing their opinions simultaneously.

"If we can't add dead characters, what do we do about E102 and Chaos?"
"E102's parts remained, so he was rebuilt. Chaos is not dead. He just went up into the sky is all."
"That's sophism."
"It's not sophism."
"We planned them to die, so we won't make the scenes."
"Why?"

So yeah. The dev team had just as many polarizing opinions about dead characters coming back to life as all of us were. I guess this is how they decided to make Omega. There's no way they could have explained the hows and whys of Gamma coming back without it feeling all clunky and expositional.
Wow, I can't believe that Mighty, Ray, Fang, Bark and Bean were all back on the cards. Sonic Team certainly took a change in approach as they stayed away from these characters (outside cameos in Generations and of course, now bringing them back for Sonic Mania).

I was also surprised that Shadow was originally planned to stay dead, as with all the unresolved bits of his story in SA2 it felt like they were always bringing him back.
Some of those pairings are very forced. Rouge doesn't go with Amy and Cream, Big, Chaos and Gamma certainly don't go together and Metal Sonic with Ray & Mighty also seems random.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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The Game Gear games have been given a once-over and some interesting tid bits have come up.

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Blast_manuals

Turns out I was right about the CEs being able to fragment into yet more CEs:
A sudden dazzling light shone on Sonic.
When Sonic woke up from the excessive glare, the Chaos Emerald that he had on hand began spinning intensely, emitting a shine that he has never seen before.

"What the? What the heck is going on!?"
As Sonic thought this to himself, the Chaos Emerald in front of him, which glowed more and more intensely, finally broke up with a shrill sound and turned into 5 gems, scattering somewhere far away.
This could account for the irregularities in CEs' numbers in various games, but potentially opens a whole can of worms on why they cannot be split ad infinitum. Or it could just be an explanation on how Sonic and others can hold onto all those gems at simultaneously; they combine into one.

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Labyrinth_manuals
On that day, Sonic woke up in the afternoon. Tails has gone out who knows how many days ago, saying something about a self-interested trip.
"Sometimes it's okay to be all on your own, too."
Sonic Labyrinth is definitely post-Sonic 2, and apparently concurrent with Tails' Sky Patrol (Or Music Maker...). So much for my conjecture that Sky Patrol was concurrent with G Sonic (which doesn't address Tails' absence), but it's nice that I was right it was concurrent with something. Labyrinth and Sky Patrol were published around the same time, fwtw.

And apropos of nothing, has anyone ever noticed the final CE in Labyrinth doesn't resemble the other CEs there, or indeed, anywhere else? What's up with that?

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Drift_2_manuals
Doctor Eggman: Daahahahahah! As I always say, I am Doctor Eggman, the ruler of the world and a super genius scientist!! This time, me and Metal Sonic will do a one-two finish!!

Entry number 5, Metal Sonic!!

Metal Sonic: .........

Doctor Eggman: Daahahahahah!! He doesn't talk!!

Entry number 6, Fang the Sniper!!

Fang: This annoying old fool is making a lot of noise, but... If you win the Grand Prix, you get a Chaos Emerald, you say? Then I'm gonna win!!
Evidently Eggman and Fang were unaffiliated in Drift 2 as well as in Triple Trouble. Neat.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Oh, and other interesting bits:

-Labyrinth does indeed take place on South Island (Just how many distinct locations does SI have!?)
-Great Battle Kukku crows like a rooster, so Crazy Penguin is right that he's a chicken. So how is Speedy such an adept flier when chickens are notoriously bad at it?
-The machine at the end of Mushroom Hill is indeed a device made to change the weather, so the scenery changing wasn't a byproduct of some other function. To what ends this achieves Eggman is not mentioned.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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I'm still not convinced this is translated correctly. Go a few lines further and Eggman says, "Now that the Chaos Emeralds are gone from this island, I ... shall build a great fortress from now on," indicating that there was more than one on the island and now they are all gone as a result of this laser - which is what we would expect since this is South Island and we know that multiple emeralds rest here. And it isn't that he'd removed the other ones from the island prior to this because this whole laser incident was an accident, not part of a plan to remove the emeralds from reach. It also makes no sense narrativly to have one emerald break into 5 rather than just having 5 emeralds like the other GG games unless you're going to do something with that idea. The emeralds are still separate in the ending, too. So I still think either Sonic had all 5 with him (playing at the role of guardian, or something) or the laser affected all of them, causing them to scatter in 5 different directions (and then into the Special Stage, apparently).
Dr. BUGMAN wrote:-Labyrinth does indeed take place on South Island (Just how many distinct locations does SI have!?)
The whole labyrinth is just one fortress Eggman constructed, so the backdrops may be artificial (first we're in the sky, then we're underwater). The whole thing could be contained in one cave complex. I'm going to assume it's Labyrinth Zone.

Also, the translation by sth2k didn't mention that this is Eggmanland. Is this the first occurrence of that name? The earliest one I have is SA1.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Also, the translation by sth2k didn't mention that this is Eggmanland. Is this the first occurrence of that name? The earliest one I have is SA1.
It first popped up in the Sonic Ova (which Sonic Team supervised), so Sonic Labyrinth must predate it. Perhaps Eggmanland was part of the Sonic series bible but just didn't make it to any of the other games. Or did Sonic Team come up with Eggmanland after the MD games and then write the story for Sonic Labyrinth (even though they didn't make the game)? I've always wondered how much of an involvement Sonic Team had in the Game Gear titles.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Dr. BUGMAN wrote:-Great Battle Kukku crows like a rooster, so Crazy Penguin is right that he's a chicken. So how is Speedy such an adept flier when chickens are notoriously bad at it?
He has a jetpack of some sort on the back of his body armour.

https://www.spriters-resource.com/resou ... 103359.png (zoom in)

Image

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Pengi on Sonic Retro found the text for the Sonic the Fighters story in a Japanese magazine, which Windii translated:
A large quantity of robots suddenly appeared on the land where peaceful days continued thanks to Sonic's frequent actions, and laid waste to its surroundings.
"This must be Eggman's doing! But where is this huge bunch of robots coming from..." as Tails muttered to himself, he got an emergency message from Espio.

In the video that Espio sent, there was a huge fortress floating on the satellite orbit. Dr. Eggman was dispatching large quantities of robots from the giant space fortress, "Death Egg 2"!

Sonic decided to get to Death Egg 2 alone by using a single-seat space rocket "LUNA POX" that Tails invented. However, in order to fly the rocket, 8 Chaos Emeralds must be collected to act as a power source. Sonic's friends, who spread throughout the world, were guarding the Chaos Emeralds separately so that they are not misused by Eggman (one of them ended up being stolen by Fang in the meantime, however...).

First, Sonic and Tails flew over to where Knuckles is. "If the rocket is single-seat, shouldn't the toughest guy be the one riding it?" Knuckles provoked Sonic after hearing what's going on. When Sonic, who obviously believed he was the strongest, accepted Knuckles's challenge and was about to fight him, Tails forced his way between the two. Tails proposed fighting fair and square in the ring, and the one who wins against all of their buddies in the world will ride the rocket.

Who will be the one to win against everyone, collect the Chaos Emeralds, and save the world? The gong of fate is now echoing.
It's a rather sweet tale, especially with the Espio and Fang references.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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So I guess that Rocket Metal being built and sent on reconnaissance by Tails was entirely fan bunkum?

Also, yet more proof Fang is unaffiliated with Bark and Bean, whose involvement was above the board.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Bark and Bean only become villains in Sonic Generations.

In this topic, their original profiles are given and it's clear that they were good guys (well, at least Bark). Also in that topic was a post from Kevin Eva (ArchangelUK) who was responsible for the wanted posters in Generations. Basically the posters had a double meaning. Although now Mania has included them, thus retconning the duo as villains.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Sonic decided to get to Death Egg 2 alone by using a single-seat space rocket "LUNA POX" that Tails invented. However, in order to fly the rocket, 8 Chaos Emeralds must be collected to act as a power source...
I kind of find it funny that a small, one-seat rocket needs the power of all (eight) of the Chaos Emeralds, when Eggman relaunched the Death Egg at the end of Sonic 3 apparently using fairly conventional rocket fuel. Granted, his goal in Sonic & Knuckles was to fuel it using the Master Emerald, but that was a special thing that could supposedly keep the Death Egg aloft forever. That and Tails and the Gang just stole a completely ordinary space shuttle to get to the ARK.

I realize this is being completely pandantic and you can probably chalk it up to Sonic Team and / or the Sonic the Fighters staff not considering the lifting power of fictional sources of exhaust when cross-checking with the continuity. But hey, this is the place to be pandantic about such things.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Frieza2000 »

I'm more bothered that he gave a purely phonetic rendering of the Romaji without regard to the context, as the ship's name is obviously LUNAR FOX even in the game.
lunar_fox.jpg
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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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I imagine Windii probably left it as Pox to keep more faithfully to the text, which is something translators often do.

It's like how everyone calls the Chaotix prototype "Sonic Crackers" because that's how it is mis-romanized on the title screen.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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big_smile wrote:I imagine Windii probably left it as Pox to keep more faithfully to the text, which is something translators often do.

It's like how everyone calls the Chaotix prototype "Sonic Crackers" because that's how it is mis-romanized on the title screen.
Wait, what is it supposed to be?

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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Probably Sonic Clackers. Neo on Sonic Retro worked that one out. It makes perfect sense given how Sonic & Tails behave in the game. Plus, L & R are interchangeable in Japanese. I think there's a couple of Playstation prototype controllers that have a SERECT button.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

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big_smile wrote:Probably Sonic Clackers. Neo on Sonic Retro worked that one out. It makes perfect sense given how Sonic & Tails behave in the game. Plus, L & R are interchangeable in Japanese. I think there's a couple of Playstation prototype controllers that have a SERECT button.
Whoa. The link to what clackers are... it makes so much more sense now. Thanks.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

It's interesting that the bolo effect was the focal mechanic for Chaotix, since it's easily one of the worst things about it. Pity too as the rubber band physics are really fun on its own and won't likely ever be revisited. I can see an elemental barrier based on it being the best of both worlds; although the way barriers work it probably wouldn't work on terrain like other ground-based maneuvers. More likely it'd create an anchor-point in midair that Sonic could orbit so long as he has enough momentum. Or something.

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by chriscaffee »

Couple ideas to poke holes in:

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

The Chaos Emerald that vanishes in Knuckles' story is actually the Master Emerald. It retreats to the Hidden Palace Zone when the 'dragon egg' lands in the lake. There aren't any other Chaos Emeralds on Angel Island. Tails' and Eggman's emerald radar pick up the Master Emerald's signal. There is only one set of seven Chaos Emeralds which Sonic brings to Angel Island. Sonic's possession of the 7 is what makes Knuckles think he is also after the Master Emerald (which is just seen as a larger Chaos Emerald at this point in the story). The Super Emeralds are just the regular Chaos Emeralds super-charged by the Master (Chaos) Emerald.

Knuckles' Chaotix

Giant Red Metal Sonic is actually being powered up by the Master Emerald, not the Super Ring. The whole point of Eggman studying the Super Ring was to use it as a backdoor to Hidden Palace. At the end of the game, Eggman and Metal Sonic disappear inside the ring and it's boss fight time. You fight Red Metal Sonic even if you have all the Chaos Rings so what is powering him? I posit the Master Emerald, just like with the Mecha Sonic fight in S&K. Also makes Knuckles being the main character more relevant.

What do you guys think?

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Re: Revenge of the nerds

Post by chriscaffee »

S3K theory is a nope.jpg. Looks like the manual clearly states "7 Chaos Emeralds" and the "Pillar" is already underground. Reading comprehension can be a good thing, chris. :P

I guess the fusion theory still makes the most sense.

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